I have a dream that one day Lagosians will be able to walk on the streets without holding their noses. People won’t have to play hopscotch over piles of putrid refuse as they walk. Commuters will not have garbage dumps as their companions while queuing at bus stops. I believe Lagos can and will be clean again…green again. If that was Ambode’s vision then it definitely escaped him. The only ‘green’ he had in mind was those rubbish (as in ‘useless’) trucks running up and down Lagos.

When LAWMA was doing the cleaning job I don’t recall Lagos beaming with trash the way it is now. You could see the workers in the early hours of the day and late into the afternoon cleaning roadsides, bridges and their orange trucks were actively stopping to pick up refuse. On the contrary every time I see a Visionscape truck I just see it moving…probably just as an advertising gimmick. Who knows?

It’s therefore no surprise that when it boiled down to the concluded Lagos Primaries the people of Lagos did not come to his aid. Unlike his predecessor Fashola who made a positive impact during his 4-year term and got re-elected, Ambode lost to a rival within his political party APC before even getting a shot at competing with the PDP. It goes without saying that Ambode should have cleaned up his act long before now.

He still has till next year before he hands over to Sanwo-Olu (APC) or Jimi Agbaje (PDP). Let’s see what good he can do for us to remember him by. IBB = Third Mainland Bridge; Obasanjo = Mobile telephony; Fashola = BRT and roadworks; Ambode = ???