At what point did you decide that the next move is to become the governor of Lagos State?

Like I said earlier, I became aware of my leadership quality at that tender age when I lost my father. It was not easy for somebody coming from such a stressed situation. when I say stressed situation, I mean having family challenges about going to school, having a career, and setting up a family. Yet, one was able to combine such together in a way and manner that years after, you are able to reflect and say that this is how far you have come. I have always seen myself as somebody that has leadership attributes and I have used it maximally. I am a beneficiary of the Fulbright Scholarship which is a Hubert Houston Fellowship programme and I had this in 1998. The essence of that scholarship which is given by the US Government is for public leadership. This is a competition that takes about 112 participants from about 120 countries for a leadership training programme for 12 to 13 months with the government of the United States. Having the capacity to go through that programme means my leadership quality has always been there through the years, and it is not necessarily being brought to the fore because of the gubernatorial aspiration I have today. When you check my profile also, you will notice that I took calculated steps in the course of my career as I tried to display competence in managerial positions and while playing leadership roles. So, what you see today is the aggregation of all those activities deliberately planned to situate myself for leadership roles in my life. Today, I happen to be the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC in Lagos, and it is not by accident; it is something I have always nurtured in my life as an avenue for giving back to humanity. The Fulbright Scholarship also inculcated in us that one person can make the difference. That same fellowship gave me the drive to come back to Nigeria and decide not to work in the local government system again but to challenge them at the state level. I voluntarily left the local government service as the treasurer of Ajeromi Ifelodun LG. Ajeromi Ifelodun happened to be the biggest LG then in terms of revenue, but when I came back from the U.S., with all my training in public leadership, I said to myself that this place was too small for me to display my public leadership quality and voluntarily wrote that I wanted to join the mainstream. It was not as if I was deployed. Fortunately for me, the first role I had was to be the Auditor General for Local Government because I was able to challenge myself that I needed a larger space to operate my leadership role and I was able to take the risk and became the Auditor General at the age of 37. That means I left something that was certain for uncertainty. But because of that attribute that flowed around me, I was able to showcase the qualities which earned me that position. The task was for me to go round all the local governments and be in charge of all the auditing of their financial statements, and we made lots of progress. I was able to clear all the backlog they had in 2001 within 18 months. Through the accomplishment of such tasks, I proved the leadership and managerial qualities in me. I am a good driver, I drive people in a team to achieve results. Without trying to be boastful, my achievements then helped me to become Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance at the age of 42. And in January, 2006 I was made the Accountant General at the age of 43, Which I accepted with all my heart. I defended Lagos State Government on all issues, as was necessary in terms of the state building up revenue generation and needing a defence at the federal level. It was in a situation when we needed to stand up for the people of Lagos State, and I stood up and was counted. I was the Accountant General of Lagos State for three years. I am very proud of my contribution to Lagos State. Lagos State will be 48 years this year and I worked here for 27 years. I came in when I was quite young and left at 49 years. I am very proud of my contributions to Lagos State.

What is your vision for Lagos?

I believe strongly in a clean, secure, and more prosperous Lagos State that is driven by service, equity and justice.

This administration strives to work extensively on roads, the environment and on the provision of infrastructure, what do you think you can do differently?

The two most important issues facing us as Nigerians and more importantly as Lagosians today are security and economy. In the constitution, government is created for two purposes; firstly, to protect the lives and properties of everyone. The second is about the welfare of the people. The main focus for us is to ensure that we safeguard the lives and properties of Lagosians on 24 hours basis. Currently, we have a Security Trust Fund that is doing very well to enhance the safety of our people. We intend to improve on that same trust fund, to ensure that we light up all our streets and have a good data management to be able to account for all our citizens. We will also employ enough modern communication technology to keep our streets and our people safe. Beyond that, I will be creating jobs for our people. Lagosians are in need of jobs. They want the economy to thrive. They want a more prosperous Lagos, and that will be our focus. While we are doing that, we will be giving them additional infrastructure to make business thrive. People are interested in mobility and also in connectivity. The main thrust of the Lagos economy is entrepreneurship. Every other person is an entrepreneur. How they move their goods from one place to another will depend on the provision of adequate and appropriate infrastructure. That is what we intend to focus on. Every other sector will be addressed, but more importantly, security and economy will be priorities and other things will also take proper shape.

As former Accountant General of Lagos, how were you able to keep Lagos financially buoyant when Obasanjo seized Lagos statutory allocations in 2005?

The cornerstone of that achievement was driven by the effective financial management of those resources that we have. It is not as if the resources were just everywhere, but there was the application of the efficiency of usage. Don’t forget where this whole story started, money was seized, with no inflow coming in at all. And you can try to imagine when a child is not fed for one month. Even before that one month, the child will die. Now, also try and imagine when a government is not fed with its own natural resources or allocation for months. That government is designed to die. But rather than dying, with the little resources coming to the state’s coffers, we redesigned a template that allowed the local governments to survive by making sure they were able to pay salaries, maintain their environment and keep life going, without necessarily delving into capital expenditure, by way of rearrangement. We kept government going by taking the little resources in the state’s coffer and bringing life into all those local governments and Local Council Development Areas, LCDAs, without anybody knowing we were squeezing ourselves. There was a balancing act, that we refer to in financial parlance as a bridging that allows every element in the whole state to have a life. We knew that it was just a matter of time. And when we had extra resources at the state level, we gave it to the local governments to execute capital expenditure at the point. Three and a half years later, when their money came back, they were able to execute the capital projects they kept waiting. Now, it is all history. Rather than having 20, we now have 57 councils. You can imagine what that means to development and growth, and in terms of job creation; there is a multiplier effect on productivity, and more families that are feeding from those structures by now having 57 councils. It is a thing of pride that one is able to sustain those structures with financial acumen, and that is what we are craving for now. As we speak, Nigeria is going down the drain because resources are falling below expectation. As we speak, the price of crude oil has gone below $50, yet the budget for 2015 is being estimated at $78. We have never had the kind of crude oil revenue we had in the last five years in the history of the country, when crude oil was trading for over $120. So, it is not as if the money wasn’t there in the last few years. It is about what we just spoke about now, which is the effective management of financial resources in an equitable and fair manner, so that all citizens will have a share in it. What we are experiencing now is the squandering of all those resources that came in. The resources should have been useful to us now. What we need to do is to put people who can manage our natural resources more effectively in places of authority. That is what this next election is about.

The PDP has been boasting that it will capture Lagos, do you think this is possible?

It is not new, they said that in 2003, 2007 and in 2011. They always use the word capture; you know what? We need to educate our voters and all our candidates. The choice before us is if we want more of what is good or more of what is bad. That is the choice. In the last 15 years, there has been an irreversible growth and development in Lagos; the state of our security in 2007 is not what it is in 2015, the state of our infrastructure in 2007 is not what it is in 2015, and it can only get better. If some other people or parties now come and say they want to capture Lagos, is it to reverse the growth and development or to implement what they are doing in Abuja or other PDP states which Lagos has never experienced before? So, it is a choice between growth and experience or destruction and experiment. Our own advice is that Lagosians should choose stability and growth and choose APC. It can only get better in Lagos with APC.

It is being said in some quarters that the government of Babatunde Fashola concentrated more of its efforts on the development of the Island than the Mainland, are you planning to make any change?

We need to clarify one thing. Development in its totality is different from the location of infrastructure. Social infrastructure is also different from physical infrastructure. Social infrastructure relates to hospitals, markets, and all things that are not critical in itself like roads and bridges. I don’t want to interpret what they are saying, but I am saying there has been even distribution of development. We cannot take it away from the present administration that development and growth has been evenly distributed across levels and across social strata. But let me ask one question concerning the one they are even talking about which is in terms of roads and bridges and what have you. Does the 3rd Mainland Bridge ask us whether we are Igbos, or if you are a Christian, or if you are poor or rich? The infrastructure is for all Nigerians who now crisscross it. It is all about connectivity and mobility from one location to the other in our search for daily bread and comfort. Infrastructure is provided for all citizens for their usage, comfort and wellbeing. Is it functional for every one of us? The answer is yes. The truth is we believe we must continue with the achievements of the present government, but we need to do more. We are going to give governance back to the community; we are going back to our communities and local governments to make them economically liveable. That is what our people are asking, that we should make our communities and local governments economically liveable. We want to provide infrastructure and amenities that will make our people live and work where they are so that they also can begin to enjoy all aspects of development. Physical infrastructure, social infrastructure, social amenities, hospitals, sport centres and others should be provided in all communities so that the people can have a sense of belonging. That is what they are asking for and that is what we want to do there.