The governorship candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress in Lagos State, Funso Doherty, speaks with YUSUF OKETOLA on his confidence in challenging the dominance of the All Progressives Congress in the 2027 governorship election
Why did you choose NDC as a platform after dumping the African Democratic Congress?
Initially, we gathered in ADC with the idea that the party would be a platform from which all of us, collectively, would unify the opposition. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out because the couple of principal actors in ADC had different ideas. So, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi went in different directions. As a result, people had to decide which of the two sides to follow. When I look at the philosophy, the attitude to governance and people-centred approach, the focus on accountability and prudence in government, and if you look back and see what I have done in the last five years, you will see that there is an alignment between my approach to governance and the NDC platform. The slogan of our party is service. Government is a service. That is why I am in NDC today.
How confident are you in winning the 2027 governorship election?
We are very confident. Let us wait and see.
What do you think is wrong with the current administration of the APC in the state?
The purpose of government is the provision of welfare and security for the people, as stated in our constitution. When you want to assess any government, you probe what they have done in that area. Go around Lagos and ask people about their welfare and security compared to four years ago. There is a lot of room for improvement. When we think about a government, we ask ourselves how the people are faring. What is their standard of living? What is their income level? What kind of education do they have in public schools? What kind of healthcare do they have in public hospitals? What kind of transport options do they have? What quality of buses do they ride in? What do they do when a woman is pregnant? What is infant mortality?.
These are the questions to ask, and when you ask those questions and compare Lagos to other cities in other countries of the world, you will understand really that the government has failed. The Yoruba will say, ‘ti obinrin o ba fe oko meji, ko le mo iyato’ (If a woman doesn’t marry two husbands, she won’t know which is better and which is worse). That is the story of Lagos. We have been under one administration for 30 years. Everybody is used to it; they feel that is how things should be, but in reality, that is not how things should be. Those who have travelled to other cities know what it is like when a city is working. Lagos is not working.
What do you plan to do differently?
There are many things to be done, especially in education. The failure rate in the 2024 WASSCE was above 50 per cent. That was a disaster. Therefore, there is a lot of work to be done. In addition, we are turning out clerically trained students. We also need to massively increase technical education in our system, so that if graduates couldn’t get office work, they can be gainfully employed with their skills. Out-of-school children are another problem in education.
There is so much more to be done in healthcare as well. People are staying away from government hospitals; they prefer to go to traditional attendants and pharmacists because the services they get there are better than those of government hospitals.
On transportation, there is no modern city in the world where you see a chaotic transport system like in Lagos. That is because the government has abdicated its responsibility. It left everything to the private sector. People are running dilapidated buses chaotically on the streets. A massive part of the traffic problem we have in Lagos State is because of the indiscipline and chaotic behaviour of many of these public transport workers. People living in slums are more than people living in proper houses in Lagos. Government needs to do more in the housing area, and we have a big plan on that, not in the tens and hundreds we are seeing now, but in thousands. That will also benefit industry and job creation.
The operation of government itself must change. The cost of governance must come down. We have to ensure people are doing their work and they are reasonably compensated. We will look into salaries and remuneration to ensure civil servants employed by the Lagos State Government have reasonable compensation in terms of salary.
Lagos has over seven million registered voters, but only about one million voted in 2023. What will you recommend to improve voter turnout in the coming elections?
We have to make people believe that their votes will count. You have to make them understand that the opportunity to make change is in their hands. An opportunity for good governance presents itself every four years. The people have to grab it with their two hands because if they miss it, they lose it for another four years. If you look at what happened in Osun during the last governorship election, people understood what they wanted and they fought for it. They didn’t sit down at home asking for their rights. If you look at voter turnout in Osun, it was about 47 per cent. In the last election in Lagos State, only about 15 per cent voted. Part of our job is also to make people understand that we have a different mindset and how to do things.
What do you consider the major factor responsible for the lack of vibrant opposition in Lagos State?
I don’t think that is true. I have been challenging the state government in the last four years. In fact, I sued the government in 2024 about the environmental impact assessment on the coastal road. The outcome of the result is what we are seeing now, and we are in the appeal court at the moment. That notion is because you see posters of APC everywhere, and because they control the airwaves, it is easy to stand back and say there is no opposition. That is not true! We are here talking, fighting, but we are dealing with a very aggressive and unscrupulous incumbent who is not prepared to operate in a live-and-let-live world. APC came into government because there was live and let live. If the government in power on that day was saying “it was live and die,” would they have APC today?.
What is your advice to the people of Lagos State, especially the youths?
The youth should understand that the future of Lagos State is actually in their hands. They should take a good example from what happened in Osun. If anybody doesn’t know before, they should know today that no amount of federal power can stop the will of the people.
I will also encourage them, as we are now approaching election season, that this is another opportunity to get things right. If they feel discouraged in the last election, maybe because of the way the electoral process went, what they need to do now is to come out even more than the last time to cast their votes and vote for good governance.
Credit: PUNCH
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