By Chukwuma Umeorah
While the administration of President Bola Tinubu has remained under scrutiny, amid concerns over rising costs of living, supporters of the government like the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Barachel Realty Limited which manages real estate portfolios, Samuel George, say that the policy direction is necessary but difficult.
In this interview with Daily Sun, George, who is also a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, explains why he believes Tinubu’s leadership capacity stands apart from that of his contemporaries.
You are an entrepreneur running a thriving business. Why did you get involved in politics?
I believe that patriotic citizens can’t sit on the fence and be complaining. So, I joined Action Congress of Nigeria in 2007. I was a founding member of All Progressives Congress. I contested for chairmanship of Eti-Osa LG in 2016. In 2018, 2019, I was the Director, Lagos State for the Buhari Campaign organization. I ran the entire political architecture in Lagos State and was responsible for strategy implementation and door to door campaign.
How do you assess Nigeria’s poverty situation in relation to governance and global development indices?
First from my perspective as a political scientist, when you see data from the Western world, you must learn that not every data is objective. It is in the interest of the West to paint Africa as a dark continent. They try to control the global narrative. The West knows that once Nigeria gets it right economically, Africa will get it right. And once Africa gets it right, it’s going to affect Western economies negatively. So it is not in their interests that we get it right economically.
How would you assess Nigeria’s economic trajectory beyond external criticism?
The government of President Tinubu is investing massively in infrastructure, from roads to airports and seaports. There is investment in tertiary education supported by a transparent scholarship programme that is flawless. Let me give you an example. China created a pathway to lift almost a billion people out of poverty. They also invested massively in education. They created special economic zones, comparable to what we call free trade zones. In the first 10 years, nothing much happened. China’s economy only grew by 100%. But they did not stop. By 1999, 20 years after, they crossed 1 trillion-dollar threshold from just their 99-billion-dollar economy 20 years before. By 2019, China’s economy was worth 44 trillion US dollars in 40 years.
How do you interpret Nigeria’s economic performance since 2015 in relation to policy decisions?
APC came into power in 2015. By 2016, global price of crude oil dropped to 27 dollars per barrel from 100 dollars in 2014. Since 1970, every government has promised a Second Niger Bridge in political campaigns, but nobody did it. Who delivered on that bridge? An APC government started and finished that bridge. Since 1908 when the first railway station was built in Lagos, no government either colonial or Nigerian ever started a rail project and finished it, except the APC-led government. The Lagos-Ibadan expressway has been under construction since 2006 and was not built until President Buhari came and completed it. As at 2015, when President Goodluck Jonathan was leaving, his PDP-led government spent billions to launch the flag off of the construction of the Shagamu interchange, but that interchange was just built and completed two weeks ago by President Bola Tinubu’s APC-led administration.
How do you respond to concerns that rising borrowing is worsening economic hardship?
When you borrow to build legacy infrastructures, it is highly justifiable. The United States of America passed the Federal Aid-Highway Act of 1956 into law, a law that enabled the construction of speedy highway development and road infrastructure across the length and breadth of America. The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway has been in the plans since the 70s to open up trade and travel within Nigeria. Only the APC-led government of Tinubu has taken this on. It is a visionary 50-year project. World Bank figures affirm that for every one billion dollars spent on infrastructure, you create a minimum of 150,000 jobs directly. As a nation we either pay now and play later, or play now and pay much more later.
How do you respond to comparisons between leading presidential candidates?
A former Governor of Lagos State is not comparable to a former Governor of Anambra. This year, the budget of Anambra is N766 billion, whereas that of Lagos is more than four times at N4.3 trillion. When Tinubu was Lagos Governor, almost all the states were of equally standing, with no money, no nothing. In eight years, he created about 14 agencies, which other governors criticized back then, but over 20 states have duplicated the same agencies for more meaningful governance. Lagos is the only state that has built a railroad train system, which whole countries in Africa can only still dream about. The Red Line and Blue Line have transported over two million people. Today Lagos State boasts of a Deep-sea port, a refinery located in Lekki Free trade zone. The foundations for all of these were laid by President Tinubu when he was Lagos State governor.
What is your assessment of Nigeria’s insecurity challenges and government response?
The dynamics of our insecurity varies from Northeast to North Central and Northwest. In the Northwest like Zamfara, it is criminality built around illegal mining that is fighting back. In the North Central like Plateau and Benue, the crisis is fuelled by age-long battle over land control between Settlers who are predominantly Muslims and indigenes who are predominantly Christians. Northeast is purely religious extremism perpetuated by Radical Islamic fundamentalists who now have international backing. It requires international assistance; we can’t deal with it alone. The federal government is fighting illegal mining in the northwest by successfully formalising the mining industry. Three factories have been set up in Nasarawa state alone in the past 3 years of this administration.
In your view as a real estate expert, what accounts for Nigeria’s difficulty in delivering affordable mass housing?
Before the man died, I was privileged to meet with Lateef Jakande in 2019. I asked Baba Jakande: How did you deliver so many low-cost housing communities that still flourish all over Lagos today? He said, number 1, it was not an economic decision, but a political decision. One of the reasons why we haven’t been able to deliver social housing in Nigeria is because successive governments haven’t looked at it from the welfare perspective. Once you anchor it on economic indices, it takes it out of the sphere of social housing, and makes it a commercial transaction. Once you do that, it becomes a commercial venture and you take it out of the reach of the people at the bottom of the pyramid.
