HUNGER, HARDSHIP AND SANWO-OLU’S CLASS ACT

 Lagos State government designs creative means to ease hardship on the people, writes Nnamdi Okebulu

Among the Yoruba, there is this saying which literally translates into: “when your masquerade dances or performs beautifully well, you naturally feel elated and reserve all the right to brag about it.” Without a shred of doubt, one can safely say that so many Lagosians and indeed other Nigerians must have been impressed by the performance of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on live national television channels on Thursday February 22, as he put up a class act, reeling out steps mapped out by his administration to tackle the twin challenges of hunger and hardship currently sweeping through the country in Lagos State – the Centre of Excellence. 

Governor Sanwo-Olu spoke with candour, panache, purpose and above all, empathy and unrestrained consideration and concern for the plight of the people. He demonstrated beyond doubt, his sincere desire to mitigate the adverse effect of the prevailing situation on all residents of Lagos State, from the lowly to the well to do in his bid to provide them with “stomach infrastructure”. And that was hardly surprising because Governor Sanwo-Olu swore an oath to do just that.

For the record, soon after he was declared the winner of the last March 18, 2023 gubernatorial contest in Lagos State by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which effectively confirmed him for a second term in office, Sanwo-Olu wrote a letter to Lagosians, not only detailing his gratitude for the overwhelming support he got but also giving them the assurance of what they should expect from him in his second tenure in office.  

Dated March 19, 2023, Sanwo-Olu, among other things solemnly pledged in the letter to ensure that “the dividends of democracy must continue to be delivered. There must be no break, there will be no time-off. We now have four more years to join hands to advance in ways that will pleasantly surprise even the most skeptical amongst us.”

It was therefore not a surprise when Sanwo-Olu announced some sweeping interventions which the state will be implementing in order to reduce the effects of the current economic hardship on its citizens.

According to the governor, the measures are targeted at the vulnerable in the society with a view to mitigating the impact of the hardship and bring about immediate ease, just as the federal government is pursuing its own recovery agenda 

 For the civil servants in the state, no more five working days for now. It has been tentatively reduced according to the grade level of each civil servant. Effective Monday, February 26, all state workers on Grade Level One to 14 will be permitted to work three times weekly until further notice. And those on grade level 15 to 17 will work four days in a week. The wisdom here lies in the fact that at a time like this, every farthing matters to whoever is holding it, cutting away the transport fare to and from work for two days surely means a lot to office assistants more commonly called cleaners. These set of people spend a huge chunk of their salaries on transport week in week out and Sanwo-Olu certainly has just demonstrated that he can be the Governor but yet with the lowly in the society.    

In his own estimation, Sanwo-Olu strongly believes the measure will reduce the pressure daily borne by workers in carrying out their duties in this period of economic hardship. The move, he emphasised, was designed to save the staff from additional stress.

Apart from civil servants, those in the private sector have not been left alone. These ones are to benefit in the form of subsidised fare within the state on all State-owned public transport agencies, including the BRT, Train and Ferry services. To this end, Sanwo-Olu announced a 25 per cent fare slash for them. What this implies in simple mathematics is that for everyone who has been paying N100 from Ketu to Ikorodu for BRT, whether you are a civil servant or not, you now have to pay N75. And that is fair enough. 

 “I convey our deepest empathy to our citizens over the current hardship occasioned by inflation. We are not unaware and unmindful of the current situation, but as leaders, we have the responsibility to bring immediate ease to our people. Given the nature of challenges that we are facing presently, we have designed creative means to ease the hardship on our people, starting with public servants.

“Effective from next week, the working hours of workers from Level One to Level 14 in the State’s civil service will be rescheduled. They will now come to the office for a maximum period of three times in a week. This measure will not shut down governance, nor will it disrupt operations of Government. It will all be calendarised and scheduled. Workers in Level 15 to Level 17 will be required to work four times in a week. All we seek to achieve is reducing the pressure on our workers and saving them from additional stress. 

“Rising cost of transportation has also made it pertinent for us to initiate an intervention in the sector. For the public using the Government-owned transport services, we are implementing 25 per cent fare reduction on all our public transportation channels. We are also working with various commercial transporters to assist in the little way we can to ease the situation. Instructions have been given to government functionaries for the implementation of these measures; modalities will be provided,” Sanwo-Olu said.

The governor also made a far-reaching decision to address the challenge of rising food prices. From his explanation, 300,000 households would benefit from a three layers of agricultural interventions as the state government would be distributing combo packages of food items to vulnerable Lagosians as it had concluded the procurement of over 100 trailers of rice and other food items, but currently fine-tuning the logistics for a seamless distribution to the beneficiaries.

 What is more, the governor announced that the popular “Sunday Market” would be opening in 42 communities across the State, where staple food would be available for residents to buy at reduced prices. However, shoppers would only be able to buy items not more than N25,000, with each shopper getting 25 per cent rebate immediately after purchase. And this will run for the next five weeks. 

 Sanwo-Olu also announced the creation of the “Soup Bowl”.  He explained that it was not an entirely new idea as it had been adopted before in the state during the COVID-19 era. “Soup Bowl” simply entails identified local cafeteria operators and caterers within communities to whom funds would be sent to enable them to prepare the soup bowls. To be able to enjoy the “Soup Bowl” programme, a voucher will be given to anybody to walk in and eat free of charge. The target of this programme is “to be able to feed between 1,000 and 1,500 people in every Local Government Area daily for the next 30 to 60 days at the first instance,” he said.

In education, Sanwo-Olu introduced additional transport support for classroom teachers to enable them keep their work schedule, while pupils across public schools would continue their five-day school attendance. Equally worthy of note is the temporary suspension of the directive compelling parents to show evidence of tax payment in order to enrol their wards in school. This is to discourage pupil absenteeism and dropping out of school.

In the healthcare delivery sector, Sanwo-Olu reintroduced free child delivery programme for expectant mothers in all the State-owned General Hospitals and special maternity centres. The State Government, he said, would take up the cost of the child delivery, including Caesarean section.

He said: “We believe this measure would help reduce pressure on families. We are also working with the State-owned hospitals to reduce the cost of some certain drugs, such as hypertension medication.

“All the six health districts in Lagos will roll out bi-weekly community health missions over the next three months, where residents would enjoy free check-ups for diabetes, blood pressure and eye testing. There will be free medications to be given to patients to manage observed conditions.”

Steadily, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the athletic built Chief-Servant of Lagos, continues to prove beyond doubt that he’s several steps ahead of his peers and at the rate he is carrying on, his place in Lagos and national history is not only assured but firmly secured. 

Okebulu writes from Lagos