Funso Doherty, governorship candidate of the New Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) in Lagos State, has promised to make education and maternal and child healthcare free, build 150,000 housing units and overhaul the state’s transportation system if elected governor.
Doherty made the commitments on Thursday at The Platform Millennial and Gen Z Town Meeting with Lagos governorship candidates, where he presented his vision for making the state more responsive to its predominantly young population.
He said young people should not be regarded as “leaders of tomorrow”, arguing that they already constitute the majority of Lagos’ population and should therefore be central to government policies.
“Gen Z is probably about 25%. Millennials, probably another 25%. If you add the Gen Alpha, which is those below, you’re probably up to about 80%. So in essence, Lagos is you and you are Lagos,” Doherty said.
He questioned why Lagos had become increasingly difficult for young people, citing challenges in education, housing, transportation and interactions with government.
“Why is it then that Lagos looks so inhospitable to the young? Why is it that it feels like a hostile environment to the young?” he asked.
Doherty said his vision was anchored on a stronger social contract in which government provides the infrastructure and services needed for citizens to thrive.
He said Lagos had the financial capacity to deliver such services, citing recent National Bureau of Statistics data which, according to him, showed that Lagos generated more internally generated revenue than most other states combined.
“My vision of Lagos is a Lagos where no child is left out of an education because their parents can’t afford it. No child dies because their parent cannot afford drugs,” he said.
Free education, healthcare
Doherty said his administration would make public education entirely free, including textbooks and examination fees, if elected.
He also promised to provide one nutritious meal daily for pupils in public schools and introduce free transportation for children who need assistance getting to school.
He said the measures were intended to ensure that poverty did not prevent children from accessing education.
On healthcare, he promised “truly free” maternal and child healthcare, including drugs, rather than nominally free services that still leave patients paying for essential treatment.
He also pledged to address Lagos’ housing deficit by delivering 150,000 housing units during his first four-year term.
“Our plan for housing is not one that delivers 200 units or 300 units. We have a quantum approach to housing. Our commitment is to deliver about 150,000 units in our first term of office,” he said.
Doherty said the housing strategy would involve allocating land for affordable housing and creating institutional structures, guarantees and secondary mortgage mechanisms to support large-scale housing delivery.
Transport overhaul
The NDC candidate also promised a major overhaul of Lagos’ transportation system, arguing that government could not leave the sector largely to private operators.
He said transportation should be treated as essential public infrastructure rather than solely as a commercial activity.
“Transportation is not really about Naira and Kobo in a city like Lagos. It is about ensuring that the city works, ensuring that people can move around,” he said.
Responding to questions about traffic and the activities of transport touts, popularly known as agberos, Doherty said a modern public transport system would reduce the influence of informal operators.
He described the collection of money by some transport touts as part of an “organised racket”, arguing that much of the money collected by street-level operators does not end up in government coffers.
Doherty said modernising transportation would also create opportunities for some of the young people currently involved in informal transport activities.
He promised to establish about 40 technical and vocational schools across Lagos during his first term, saying vocational training could provide alternative livelihoods for young people who do not proceed through conventional academic pathways.
Waste management
On waste management, Doherty said Lagos needed greater government investment across the entire waste-management chain, from collection and transfer to processing and final disposal.
He argued that inadequate capacity at any point in the chain would result in waste accumulating elsewhere.
“Government needs to step up and put the resources and put those things in place because when you do that, you don’t have the capacity at each node to deal with those things,” he said.
He also called for greater investment in recycling and waste-to-energy systems.
Decentralised road maintenance
Doherty said his administration would decentralise road maintenance by strengthening the capacity of public works departments at the local government level.
He proposed that the Lagos State Public Works Corporation should have operational bases in each local government, equipped and funded to identify and repair deteriorating roads before they become major infrastructure problems.
“If in Alimosho, for example, there’s a public works department in Alimosho, operations-based with its equipment, with its materials, well-funded, well-staffed… and given the tools to deploy and understand where roads are getting bad and deploy and fix them immediately,” he said.
He said the state government would monitor the operations while local authorities handled routine maintenance.
Doherty said no part of Lagos should be considered less important in the distribution of government resources, stressing the need to strengthen local governments and devolve resources to them.
Lagos must work for young people
The candidate said his proposed policies would form part of a manifesto containing 34 specific commitments for his first term, which he said would be released the following week.
He maintained that the ultimate objective was to create a Lagos where young people could access education, healthcare, housing and reliable transportation without being forced to leave the state in search of better opportunities.
“We can’t tell them not to leave. What we need to do is to make the place attractive for them to stay,” he said.
