“I have been a foundation member of my party; the PDP”
Last week, we published the first part of our interview with a former Director General, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA); Dr Ade Dosunmu. In this concluding part, he talks about politics, especially his interest in the governorship of Lagos state.
Your name has been featured in the build-up to the 2023 general elections. Is it true you want to be governor of Lagos State?
I have run for the office before; in 2011. It is not something you just wake up and say you want to embark on, if you don’t really feel that you have things to offer. For me, I believe that my state has a lot to benefit from me and that is why I have offered myself again to contest for the governorship position of Lagos State.
What informed your decision?
First, I believe I am one of many Lagosians that have had the great opportunity of being educated to the level that I am; having a great opportunity to be trained to the level that I am; being able to go through the experiences I have gone through and also have the type of interactions that I have had. All these put together, I think I cannot take that for granted. I cannot keep them in my house. It is beyond what my house needs. I can only put those things together for the service of my state. These include the experience, exposure, training and all that that I have had. That is why I feel that I am eminently qualified to run for that office and if I eventually get it, Lagos state will change for the better.
How do you think your party can upstage the ruling APC?
There is nothing permanent in politics and in life. I have been a foundation member of my party; the PDP. People always ask me why I am still in PDP and have not defected to another party and I said No, I am not in politics like a professional politician who will jump from one party to the other. I am in politics to live a life of service. If my party is in government, I will serve and if my party is not in government, I don’t believe I have to jump to another party. That is beyond service.
Lagos state has been under the ruling party since 1999 and that is about 23 years now I feel that firstly, the opportunities and potentials of Lagos have not been fully explored. We need people who have exposure beyond the shores of Lagos. If you look at most of the people that have governed Lagos, they have always been a product of Alausa. No, we need people that have seen beyond Alausa, that have gone far and wide in terms of exposure and experience, because Lagos is the melting pot of the nation. It is a megacity. Being a megacity is like it is a country on its own in terms of the GDP, population, and social-economic activities that take place in Lagos. If it were to be a country, it would be about the 5th or 6th largest in Africa. So, a state like that requires very sound experienced and exposed people to govern it. You don’t limit Lagos to people who only pass through Alausa or one Permanent Secretary or Local government official somewhere. Yes, you need to have experience, but your experience needs to cut across and go beyond the Lagos State Civil service or Local Government service. That is part of the advantages that people like us have. We have served locally, at the federal level, and also globally. Apart from being at the Council of IMO, I was at the Council of International Labour Organization and also the alternate Permanent Representative of Nigeria at International Seabed Authority in Jamaica. These are the interactions that we have had, and we have also visited countries and seen the way they have been running their countries. In all these, they can only be useful when we bring them to the economy of Lagos state.
If you succeed, how will your government tap the numerous aquatic potentials in Lagos?
The maritime potentials are huge. I can tell you that so far, they have not even tapped up to 10 to 15 percent of the maritime potentials of Lagos. These are things we already have in our blueprint. We will use the maritime potential of Lagos to create opportunities for people and create employment for our youths. We will use it to decongest the city and we will use it to ensure that Lagos remains a hub within the sub-region. If you look at the two largest ports in Nigeria, they are in Lagos; which are Tin Can Island Port and the Apapa Port. These are the largest in terms of traffic and cargo. If you look at the capacity of these two ports, you will notice that they are highly overstretched. I think the entire capacity of Nigerian ports was to be able to handle five million metric tonnes of cargo. But as we speak now, they are handling more than 100 million metric tonnes of cargo. It shows that there is a need for expansion. Lagos is lucky that we have very good drafts all over, we have in Badagry and Lekki. I feel that we don’t need to build a massive port. The mistake people are making is that anytime we want to talk about the decongestion of the ports we talk about the deep seaport. You just need to create a standard port infrastructure that can at least allow vessels to come in and discharge their cargo. The other developments will grow as time goes on. After all, what does it take for some of the container terminals that you see around now? People are already decongesting the ports by building some terminals along the corridors. You will see that it is not rocket science. By the time we have 10, 15, or 20 of such, you would not see traffic in Apapa again. You do barge operations and some of the barges currently being used are rickety barges. These are some of the areas the government needs to look into. They need self-propelled Barges and they must ensure that barge operation is standardized because, with that, the problem of congestion in Apapa or in any port city would be addressed.
Read Also: Shipping Position Interaction with Dr Ade Dosunmu Part 2
How will the Lagos shipping community benefit from your government?
That’s my own constituency. The Lagos shipping community will be able to benefit because I will open up the shipping space in Lagos, particularly the coastal opportunities for the people. This is because I know that at the end of the day, it will add to the GDP. The government will draw more revenue from it and it will create more employment for our youths. Whoever creates anything in Lagos is not going to go to Ghana or anywhere else to go and bring the workers. It is the people from Lagos that will work there. So they will benefit and Lagos will also benefit. It is going to be a win-win situation
Will you say that the Cabotage Act is a failure or a success?
Well, it is not easy for me to make a sweeping remark on Cabotage. For me, Cabotage comes with a lot of mixed feelings. First, it is a beautiful piece of legislation, because it has created a kind of awareness for the industry to know that these are potentials that we have within the industry and we must make efforts to tap into it. These are the potentials of owning, manning and building. Building is for the shipyards, crewing is for the training institutions and then owning is for the businessmen who are within the ship owners. Before the Cabotage Act, these potentials were not there and even if they were, they were there latently, they were not captured in any legislation. So for it to be captured in the legislation shows the seriousness of the Government. Looking at the enactment of that legislation to date, accessing the impact is another thing. There may be one or two bottlenecks that are making it difficult. The one I can easily tell you is that building, crewing and ownership is a challenge. The Act tries to address the issue of ownership by coming up with the Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund, that would have addressed the issue of ownership. The NSDP would have addressed the issue of crewing. The issue of the building which is of maritime capacity that ought to be built is a major challenge. We have the Naval Dockyard and some shipyards here and there, but vessels are not built by shipyards unless they are required; that is, somebody coming with the requirements and whoever is going to come with it must have a contract. There are three things that are important, you need money, vessel and cargo. But the most important one is the Cargo. If you have the Cargo which is the business, you can get the vessel and also the money. But if you have the money, you may not get the cargo. These are the intricacies that government needs to look into. For me, it is a good legislation and also work in progress.
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