The sprawling megacity of Lagos, with over 20 million residents, is the cultural and economic heart of Nigeria. For over two decades, the state has embarked on audacious infrastructure renewal projects that are capital intensive. The execution of ongoing projects alone, let alone the challenges of urban sustainability in the context of Lagos make governing the state a herculean task. In this article, Deputy Governor Obafemi Hamzat unfolds the agenda of the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration.
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Sanwo-Olu’s development agenda for Lagos
At the outset, the perception of many Lagosians about the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration was not entirely a positive one. Based on the performance of his predecessors in office since 1999, Lagosians were not convinced that he could step onto their shoes.
Given the mountain of work in all sectors in Lagos somehow Governor Sanwo-Olu’s gentle mien did not fit into the mold of a performer in the eyes of some residents.
But, almost one year after, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos has once again proved critics wrong.
Since the inception of the administration, Governor Sanwo-Olu has been working quietly in several sectors; to continue from where his immediate processor in office, Akinwinmi Ambode stopped, and also to initiate new policies to up the ante in the development of Lagos.
Deputy Governor Obafemi Hamzat recently unfolded some of the blueprints of the administration, sector by sector, in an interview with the editorial team of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
In the education sector, for instance, Dr. Hamzat said the administration has embarked on a policy reform, which is dubbed ‘Eko Excel’, the state is re-engineering its teaching methods and also adopting a holistic approach to tackling challenges in the sector, to bring out the best in the pupils.
He said: “We started with 300 schools. What that means is that all the primary school teachers will have a tablet that allows them to concentrate on teaching so that they do not need to do all the teachers note that needs to be done and schedule of work.
We have trained them in knowing the essence of teaching. Just changing the essence of teaching and even how they talk to the children/address them. Even if a child does something wrong, there are ways of correcting them.
“Around the world, the focus has always been on the provision of equipment for the classrooms and to have a great classroom for learning but those things don’t teach children as it does not mean the children will come out well. You might have a great classroom but it does not make anything.
So over time, what the state government has done is to focus on the teachers as they are the common denominators. It means we must concentrate on the teachers. They are the common denominator.
“After six years the children will go but the teachers remain over and over again. So we realise that the best thing to do is to concentrate on the teachers, their welfare, skills, their training and the way they approach it. That is what Eko Excel is doing.”
The deputy governor said it is too early to assess the impact of the scheme. He added: “In two to three years’ time, we would see how the teaching method has changed. We would see how it has affected the culture of our education, the children and everything.
We would also be able to gather information better through the equipment that will help us to geo-reference. So, we can know, for instance, in class 4A in Agidingbi Primary School, 20 students came to class or 21 children came at 9 am. – so why are they coming to school late? Is it that they are living far from school?
“All this information will help us to plan well. Also, it has helped us in monitoring the time the teachers resume work.
Also, if a teacher is coming late to school, why is it so? For example, a teacher teaching in Ikorodu and living in Oworonshoki, so why can’t we just move the teacher to around the place he or she lives for convenience and good delivery on the job.
“We are also finding out that some schools have only seven children while in some schools they have up to 60. So it tells us that in some cases, maybe we are building in the wrong places.
So, maybe we need to build more classes in such areas because, in some local governments, the number of children in school is extremely small compared to some others.”
Another component of Eko Excel, the deputy governor said, would address malnutrition among school children. He said primary education is the foundation of development and that it is important to fix it.
He said studies show that 52 per cent of children under five years of age in the northern part of the country are malnourished. He said in the south the percentage is about 20.
Hamzat said while it is necessary to build roads, provide amenities and other things that it is equally important to take care of the younger population by addressing malnutrition among children between the ages of zero to five because, as doctors have told us, this is the time the brain develops.
He said: “So we have a committee on nutrition and also a department on nutrition but what is surprising is that study shows that it is not the children of the poor that are mostly malnourished. The children of the rich and middle class can actually be malnourished as well if they are not eating right because as children they like to eat anything.
“If we can reduce that number, it would be a fantastic achievement even though it is not something that people like to talk about but the impact will be good because we would now build children that are healthy and intelligent thereby the future of our country will be secured.”
On the health, he said the Lagos State Government has increased the budget to the sector by almost 70 per cent and are planning to build new hospitals across the state.
He said: “We want to make sure that every part of Lagos is covered in terms of healthcare delivery services. For instance, we are planning to build a General Hospital in Ojo; that axis doesn’t seem to have any at the moment. We are also planning to build a spinal injury hospital somewhere in Gbagada.
We are also getting people to help us design as we have been made to understand that a lot of our General Hospitals needs to be redesigned.
“For example, you go to UCH, Ibadan at night without air conditioner (AC) you feel cold because of the architectural design. It is designed so that air can pass through… that is cross ventilation. We have gotten people that design hospitals for the tropics.”
Hamzat said the government is not just interested in building new structures, but building ones that are easier to maintain and allows for ventilation.
He added: “Part of the challenge in most hospitals is that you go for the treatment of one ailment and later get infected with another thing.
So these are the questions we asked our medical team. We are not medical doctors but we know these things happen. So, we are redesigning our hospitals.”
On the hardship imposed on residents by the ban on commercial motorcycle and tricycle operators, otherwise known as Okada and Keke by the government, Dr. Hamzat said the underlying motive behind the policy is to reduce accidents on the roads and thereby preserve the lives of Lagosians.
He said: “The most important thing for us is that people must be alive before they can do anything. When life is lost, then there is really nothing else. It’s the dead end.
So for us what is important is how do we secure this society? There are details and information that the government sometimes has that you can’t even share with citizens because they won’t be able to sleep if you divulge such information.”
The deputy governor said critics of the policy have been insisting that alternatives ought to have been put in place before the ban came into effect.
He said: “But, I disagree because it will have been too late if we delayed further; if we failed to secure the lives of our children we will be very irresponsible. That is why it was restricted in certain areas where we saw the upsurge.”
On the menace of members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) on Lagos roads, the deputy governor said the challenge is that it is a national union recognised by law.
He said like the Association of Academic Union of Universities (ASUU), there are many things that members of the union do that the state government does not support, “but as a union recognised by law in our country, we will keep engaging them in dialogue.”
He said: “Whether we like it or not, they have some roles that they play in the transportation sector because you know what, the transportation sector is not something that private people go into without subsidy from government all over the world.
But they are doing it without such assistance, so we must find a way to make it better for them and for us as a people. The engagement must continue for us to have a peaceful society.”
The deputy governor spoke extensively on the traffic gridlock in Lagos, attributing it, for the most part, to the breakdown of vehicles, which impede the free flow of traffic.
The Lagos number two citizen also attributed the traffic gridlock to ongoing road constructions in various parts of the city. He said: “For instance, at Ojota, we are replacing the whole stretch of Ikorodu Road with concrete. At Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, we are also doing concrete.
The problem is that on that corridor, we are doing 300 metres every day but it takes 14 days to execute it properly.
So, because it takes 14 days, no vehicle can pass within those number days. It means that for a long time, that corridor would continue to experience traffic while the project is ongoing. a challenge about there.
“In fact, it is one of the reasons that we are talking to the company that maybe we should use reinforced bitumen rather than concrete, particularly as the construction work approaches Oworonshoki.”
Alaka, he added, is also experiencing a similar traffic gridlock because of the expansion project also ongoing there, it is a problem.
Because a lot of these things are happening, there will be (gridlock). “But, I think it is better to do it once and in another six or seven months, everybody will be okay,” he added.
Hamzat said the administration is taking advantage of the body of water that surrounds Lagos, by developing water transport. He said 14 boats were recently purchased and are being used to convey people in a most comfortable way.
He urged many residents along the coastal line to take advantage of the waterways to get to their destinations, and thereby reduce pressure on the roads.
His words: “We need the water not just to farm but also for transportation. The Lagos State Government just procured those 14 new boats. The beauty of it is that all those boats were built in Nigeria. Of course, we brought the engine, but we have been able to build that capacity to build boats.”
Hamzat said Lagos deserves a special status because of the nature of the responsibilities it is shouldering within the Nigerian federation. He said the state is pursuing it through a bill on the floor of the Senate initiated by Senator Oluremi Tinubu.
He said: “We are pushing it; maybe we are going about it in a different way. It might not be in the newspapers. It is by talking to everybody that is involved in the process. It is really going on but in a different way. If something is not working in a particular way, you try another approach.”
On the perceived heavy borrowing in Lagos and the debt profile, he said there is no way the government can meet up with the huge infrastructural deficit without borrowing. He said: “There is a musician in Epe in the 1970s; he is dead now.
His name is Ligali Mukaiva; he was not educated, but he said something profound that has stuck to my memory since. I was in primary school then.
The man sang a song that any businessman that doesn’t use other people’s money will not succeed. So, the reality is, where do you get resources to build for today?
“I remember during Asiwaju Tinubu’s government when they took a bond of 15 billion. The opposition said Oh; he has mortgaged the lives of the young people.
That loan has been paid. During BRF government, we took 375 billion bonds, that bond has been paid. Without that, we cannot build the Lekki Link Bridge.”
He said Lagos gets only N8 billion or N9 billion monthly from federal allocation. “By the time you pay salaries, you only have N1 billion left. What can you do with N1 billion? So, the reality is, how do you source the find for infrastructural development?” he said.
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The Federal Government on Wednesday defended its $21.7bn supplementary external borrowing plan submitted to the National Assembly, describing it as a strategic investment programme rather than debt accumulation.
It revealed that the administration it succeeded had printed over N30tn, equivalent to more than $20bn at the time, and the country is still absorbing its inflationary impact.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, made the claim when he briefed State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the State House, Abuja.
Oyedele, who spoke on the state of the economy, had presented 10 memos, all of which were approved by the council.
The first, he said, was a €155.9m credit facility from Deutsche Bank and other banks to upgrade 132/33kV substations under the Presidential Power Initiative Phase One, which he said would improve power reliability for homes and businesses and lower energy costs. The second was a $970m syndicated term loan from Standard Chartered and the Africa Finance Corporation for rolling stock on the Karu–Maradi rail line, intended to boost freight, regional trade, and the Northern Economic Corridor while reducing logistics costs.
The third was a €76.8m credit from the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development to Bauchi State for a transport infrastructure development programme, covering rural and urban roads and farm-to-market access routes to support food security.
The fourth was an approval for non-intrusive inspection scanners for the Nigerian Customs Service to speed up cargo clearance, reduce smuggling and misdeclaration, and intercept contraband and small arms.
He explained, “As I said, there were 10 of them. I’ll just briefly speak to about four of them. One of them was a 155.9 million euro credit from Deutsche Bank and some other banks directed at upgrading about 132/33 kV substations and a few other ones. There are five of them, actually, five new ones under the Presidential Power Initiative Bash One. Essentially, this is a government intervention that will help ensure more reliable power for homes and businesses and lower energy costs.
“Another memo was with respect to a $970m syndicated term loan by Standard Chartered Africa Finance Corporation on rolling stock for the Karu-Maradi rail line. What is the essence of this? This will give us shipper freight, regional trade, the Northern Economic Corridor and lower prices for logistics, inflation and price levels.
“Another one was 76.8 million euros. This is from the ECOWAS Bank, and it is credit to Bauchi State for the Transport Infrastructure Development Programme, and this is going to help us with rural and urban roads, and to build farm-to-market access roads that will help with food security.
“And finally, council approved the investment in a non-intrusive inspection scanner for technical support, repairs, and maintenance to the Nigerian Customs Service. What is the essence of this? It will help with faster cargo clearance, less smuggling, and less misclassification. And we can then detect when some evil people want to bring in contraband and dangerous small weapons to our country.”
On the $21.7bn supplementary external borrowing plan, obtained by our correspondent from a presidential aide, Oyedele pushed back against critics who had described it as debt, insisting that the Tinubu administration was simply investing in critical infrastructure.
“So, another part of this presentation is on the borrowing plan that was presented to the National Assembly. Altogether, if you convert the euro amount and add it to the dollar amount, it comes to $21.7bn. And we’ve seen some people with commentary saying that we are borrowing X, Y, Z.
“I’m pleased and excited to inform you that actually this does not qualify as borrowing. This qualifies as investment, and I will explain that to you in the next few minutes. Now, so what is this all about? This is an amount or a plan.
“First and foremost, this is a plan. It doesn’t even mean that we borrow all of it. So it’s a plan. The average lifespan of the project under this plan is five years, by the way. So, this means countries need to plan. You can’t be doing everything based on spontaneity and randomness. Now, these amounts, about $10.6bn out of it, are for investment in transportation infrastructure,” he explained.
According to the document, the plan covers 46 projects across 11 sectors, with 29 on concessional or blended terms.
Transportation led with $10.6bn, including sections of the Lagos–Calabar and Sokoto–Badagry highways and the Kano–Kaduna Metro Rail. Ten flagship projects accounted for 58 per cent of the total, at $12.5bn.
The social sectors, agriculture, energy, social protection, climate, and education, totalling $4bn, will be funded entirely on concessional terms.
According to the document, about $7.9bn will come from multilateral and bilateral development partners, led by the World Bank with $5bn at an average rate of 2.1 per cent.
The remaining 11 lender groups include regional development finance institutions, export credit agencies, and commercial banks.
For the commercial component, the average indicative rate is 7.8 per cent, below the 9.1 to 9.6 per cent yield on Nigeria’s November 2025 Eurobond.
Oyedele attributed the gap to credit rating upgrades by Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P.
He noted that $4.8bn of the total was for subnational and agency borrowing, with $3.3bn going directly to states and $1.45bn channelled through agencies and development finance institutions including the Bank of Industry, Development Bank of Nigeria, Transmission Company of Nigeria, and electricity distribution companies.
“The Federal Government has the constitutional duty to be the interface for all external borrowing. So when people say we are borrowing $21.7bn, they need to know that a significant chunk is for states, the FCT, and agencies, not for the Federal Government alone,” he said.
Drawing a comparison with private sector financing, Oyedele argued that the plan would generate returns well in excess of its cost.
He argued, “If Aliko Dangote was going to save money to build his refinery, it would not have been built in his lifetime. He had to take the financing to make it happen. $20bn is now listed in less than four years, and the value has more than doubled. This is exactly what we are doing for our country.
“There are people who will tell you borrowing is bad. You just need to ask them: in which country on this planet do you run an economy without borrowing? To the extent that you borrow one naira to create value of more than one naira, you should please borrow more.”
On food price stability, which was adopted by the council as a priority resolution, Oyedele said the Federal Government was pursuing a national approach coordinated with state governments under the National Economic Council’s 90-day action plan.
“The short term is to ensure that in the coming months, leading up to the end of the year, the price of the most important staple items, rice, yam, beans, maize, remains stable or comes down,” he said.
He said the government would map the gap between local consumption and local production to calibrate targeted imports, adding that only unprocessed brown rice would be imported to preserve local milling jobs and processing capacity.
Over the medium and long term, the plan envisaged expanded irrigation farming to allow year-round agricultural production, improved crop yields through science, and significant reduction of post-harvest losses.
“We will not only be food sufficient; prices will be stable and affordable, and we will export, and a lot of it will be processed before we export. There is nothing that says people cannot be rich doing farming. This is the level we are getting into,” Oyedele said.
Speaking earlier, Oyedele contrasted the state of the economy in May 2023, describing Nigeria as having been weeks away from a full economic collapse when the Tinubu administration took office.
He said, “Inflation was at 22.41 per cent, and our reserve was net of $859m, not even enough to cover one month of imports. We had a spread between the official rate and the parallel rate of over 60 per cent premium, enabling round-tripping by the highly connected, while businesses, including manufacturers, could no longer access foreign exchange.
“We had printed altogether over N30tn to spend, and the impact of that amount, at the time, this was more than $20bn, is what we are dealing with today in inflationary pressure. Debt service at the time was consuming 97 per cent of revenue, nearly 100 per cent, and about 27 states could no longer reliably pay salaries. They were owing arrears of pension and gratuities.”
He said without the reforms, Nigeria would have slipped into hyperinflation and a full currency collapse far more severe than the devaluation that has taken place.
On petrol subsidy removal, Oyedele traced the policy to 1973, noting that a litre of premium motor spirit sold for six kobo then and N195 when the subsidy was removed in 2023, a 3,050-fold increase over 50 years that never resolved the underlying problem.
“Each time we increased the PMS price, Nigerian people suffered for it, but no benefit came. This is the first time in that half-century that the problem has now been solved, and the benefits are now accruing to our country,” he said.
The minister said growth had accelerated from 2.74 per cent in May 2023 to 4.43 per cent as of the second quarter of 2026, more than 60 per cent improvement, and Nigeria’s dollar-term growth rate in the first half of 2026 stood at 17 per cent, placing it among the world’s fastest-growing economies.
“This is the reason why we are classified by the IMF as one of the top 10 countries in the world contributing to global GDP growth,” he said.
On inflation, Oyedele said the September 2026 print of 14.63 per cent was down from 20.98 per cent a year ago and from a peak of about 34 per cent at the height of the inflationary pressure.
He added that month-on-month food inflation had fallen by 1.55 per cent, describing it as deflation in food prices.
Foreign reserves, he said, had risen to an 18-year high of over $55bn, with net reserves now exceeding $45bn, up from less than $1bn three years ago, a 45-fold increase.
The naira, currently trading between N1,330 and N1,350 to the dollar, was projected to appreciate further.
“Even the IMF estimates that the naira is about 25 per cent undervalued. So anybody who wants to bet against the naira should make provision for their losses. The currency to hold is the naira, even more than the US dollar or pound sterling,” Oyedele said.
He said the tax-to-GDP ratio rose from barely 7 per cent in 2023 to about 12.5 per cent at the end of 2025, while the debt service-to-revenue ratio fell from 97 per cent to under 60 per cent and was still declining.
Federation Account allocation grew 44 per cent from 2024 to 2025, with a projected 50 per cent growth from 2025 to 2026, and a real growth rate, stripping out inflation, of over 80 per cent across the two years.
Internationally, he said Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P had all upgraded Nigeria’s credit rating, with outlooks recently adjusted from stable to positive. Nigeria had also exited the Financial Action Task Force grey list and the European Union’s deficiency list, he added.
Responding to what he described as a recurring question about the gap between macroeconomic improvements and the lived experience of average Nigerians, Oyedele cited a series of direct interventions.
He stated, “To date, we have N372.6bn disbursed through NELFUND to more than 1.5 million students, which means their parents and guardians do not have to worry about tuition and stipend. We have more than 10 million households that have received cash transfers worth more than N600bn, and the target is to reach at least 15 million households,” he said.
Over 800,000 micro, small, and medium enterprises had received single-digit subsidised loans, mostly through the Bank of Industry, he added. Also, low-income earners earning up to N100,000 per month had been exempted from personal income tax, while small businesses with annual turnover of not more than N100m, representing about 97 per cent of over 40 million small businesses, were exempted from corporate income tax, VAT obligations, and withholding tax deductions.
The minister also noted that the capital market had grown from about N30tn to over N160tn, a more than fivefold increase in three years, and that more than 90 per cent of capital market investors were small investors who had been granted capital gains tax exemptions.
Council, he said, adopted a resolution to target single-digit inflation by the end of 2027 or earlier, stabilise and reduce food prices, and sustain fiscal discipline through the election cycle.
Oyedele’s defence comes amid criticism of President Bola Tinubu’s request to the National Assembly for approval of the loan plan.
The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Atiku Abubakar, the Makinde/Daura Campaign Council and others have criticised the Federal Government’s borrowing plan.
On Tuesday, Atiku urged the National Assembly to suspend consideration of the request until the Federal Government made public the projects the loans were intended to finance.
President Bola Tinubu has blamed his political opponents for hunger and poverty in Nigeria, saying his administration is working to address the challenges.
Tinubu spoke on Saturday at the All Progressives Congress presidential campaign flag-off rally at Ranchers Bees Stadium in Kaduna State ahead of the 2027 general elections.
“I have an argument. I hear my opponent talking about hunger, poverty. Who created it? They did! They created the hunger, they created the poverty. We are trying to eradicate it,” the President said.
He also defended his administration’s record on salary payments and praised governors for their performance.
Nigeria’s debt interest payments exceed revenue by ₦1.5 trillion
“We pay salaries regularly. Our governors are working. I am proud of them. They are developing,” he said.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, has said the North should support President Bola Tinubu for a second term in 2027.
He insisted that any Northerner seeking the presidency in 2027 would be working against the region’s interests.
Akume said the North should allow Tinubu to complete his political project before considering another presidential bid in 2031.
The SGF stated this on Saturday while addressing Benue State indigenes resident in Kaduna ahead of the flag-off of the All Progressives Congress presidential campaign in the state capital.
He urged Northerners to remain united and resist political ambitions capable of dividing the region ahead of the 2027 general elections.
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“The North must remain united and focus on its collective interest rather than allow individual ambitions to divide us,” Akume said.
The former Benue State governor argued that the region needed to consider its long-term political interests and the implications of the 2027 presidential election for its future.
He said, “President Bola Tinubu should be allowed to complete his political project before the North considers its own presidential ambition in 2031.”
Akume also cautioned against attempts to divide Northerners along political, religious and personal lines, stressing that unity remained essential to the region’s political relevance.
“We must not allow political, religious or personal differences to undermine our common interests. The strength of the North lies in our ability to work together,” he said.
The SGF further called for peaceful coexistence and cooperation among Nigeria’s diverse ethnic and religious communities, saying national development depended on unity.
He urged the people to examine political developments carefully and avoid being misled by individuals whose ambitions might conflict with the broader interests of the region.
The meeting brought together Benue indigenes living in Kaduna and other political stakeholders to discuss issues affecting their community, political representation and engagement with leaders at the national level.
The APC presidential campaign flag-off in Kaduna is expected to bring together party leaders, supporters and political stakeholders from across the country.
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