The Peoples Democratic Party governorship
candidate in Lagos State, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, says in order to meet the
growing demand for accommodation in Lagos State, he will make the cost
of land virtually free if elected governor.
Agbaje said this at a fundraising dinner titled, “An evening of interaction and dinner with Jimi Agbaje” in Lagos.
He said Lagos had a housing deficit of
over two million and his target was to ensure that at least 200,000
housing units are built yearly.
He said, “We have to encourage housing
because Lagos will become a slum if we do not address the issue. Lagos
needs over two million housing units and that is an average of getting
200,000 every year. We have to encourage people to invest in housing and
that means we have to improve the issue of how you get your
construction permits.
“We have got to ensure that you are able
to get you C of O (Certificate of Occupancy) on time and reduce the
bureaucracy involved in housing. More importantly, for those who want to
get involved in affordable housing, we will throw incentives at you,
and we will give you land for nearly free.”
The PDP candidate admitted that Governor
Babatunde Fashola had worked in several areas but maintained that Lagos
would have experienced transformation if not for “vested interests.”
He said, “We want to start a fundamental
change and I think it must start from the leadership because it is not
that we do not have the ideas or what we need to do but I think it means
a certain type of leadership which is selfless and is more about the
people than ourselves, a leadership that is free of vested interests. We
can no longer run Lagos where the social, economic and political life
of the state is affected by vested interests. We pledge that our
leadership will not be about vested interests.”
