EndSARS: ‘We’ve Started Rebuilding Of Lagos’ – Sanwo-Olu

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, says his government has started rebuilding properties destroyed during the #EndSARS protests.

Speaking to State House correspondents on Thursday after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Sanwo-Olu said the rebuilding process would take a while to finish.

The governor noted that his administration is also assisting affected small businesses to rebuild through the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund.

He, however, stressed that the state government would need more assistance from both the public and private sectors in order to complete the rebuilding process.

He said, “It is work in progress. To take something down takes one day, to rebuild it take 10 years. It is a journey, not a destination. And so, it is 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 have started something.

“Some businesses that were affected, people who had their shops looted or burnt or something; we have 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 items around infrastructure, around transportation, they will take a fairly longer time. We are talking about a period that is still under three months. So, it is still a working document that we are doing right now and we also have to be very creative in how we raise the finance. We didn’t have money anywhere; you know it was towards the end of a financial year and we’re just starting another year.”

Speaking on managing the second wave of COVID-19 in the state, Sanwo-Olu said more patients in the state are in need of oxygen, noting that the second wave appears more infectious than the first.

He added that this development has led his government to build 10 oxygen tents in the state.

However, the governor regretted that the state remains the epicentre of the virus, saying that his administration is doing its best to combat the dreaded virus.