LAGOS State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said it will take time to complete the process of rebuilding the infrastructure vandalized in the state during the #EndSARS protest last October.
The governor, who spoke on Thursday to State House correspondents after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja, said state government had begun the rebuilding process with the tasks he described as ‘low hanging’, such as providing support to small and medium scale businesses caught up in violence during the period.
He observed that pooling resources from all possible angles and sources to tackle the task would have to be creative, coupled with the fact that the crisis that led to the destruction is still very fresh.
“It’s also some of the things I discussed with Mr. President. It’s work in progress. To take something down it takes one day, to rebuild it takes 10 years. It’s a journey, not a destination. And so it’s going to take a while. We are carefully taking a proper study to know what we need to do, taking our time to get it right, but we’ve started something.
“Businesses that were affected, some businesses that were affected: somebody having their shops looted or burnt or something. We’ve been able to directly begin to support such businesses, especially on a micro, small level, using the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund.
“They have started intervening and supporting some of these small businesses, giving them grants, giving them soft loans and making sure that they can come back together very quickly.
“The bigger, larger items around infrastructure, around transportation, they will take a fairly longer time. We’re talking about a period that is still under three months. So, it’s still a working document that we are doing right now and we also have to be very creative in how we raise the finance,” he said.
