Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu builds like he’s running out of time. The way he’s going about it, rather than it just changing, the skyline in Lagos is being rewritten, concrete chapter by concrete chapter.
Elected in 2019, Sanwo-Olu has pursued a simple, brutal formula: build big, build fast, and build to last. His T.H.E.M.E.S+ agenda has unleashed a parade of “legacy-grade” projects designed to solve decades-old problems. The scale is difficult to fathom.
His crown jewels are the rails. Lagos now operates two metro lines, a feat no other African state can claim. The Blue Line stretches westward, the Red Line increases capacity, and a new Green Line is a behemoth N1.05 trillion project on the drawing board. He has made trains a vernacular part of Lagos life.
The road network receives a similar onslaught. The iconic Opebi-Mende-Ojota Link Bridge, set to open in 2026, is a 3.89km contraption designed to defeat legendary traffic. Concrete pours over the Lekki-Epe Expressway; partnerships extend highways down the coast.
His ambition has a human face. He will open the largest children’s hospital in Sub-Saharan Africa and a 500-bed psychiatric facility. In schools, he has distributed over 450,000 e-learning devices. This isn’t just policy; it’s a deliberate scaffolding for the future.
Even culture and food security get the grand treatment. A 40-foot Eyo Monument now stands guard at a cultural centre. The massive Imota Rice Mill churns out tons of grain, backed by a N500 billion food fund.
For 2026, he proposed a N4.237 trillion “Budget of Shared Prosperity.” The goal is to finalise Lagos’s transformation into a smart megacity. The budget is less a plan than a manifesto in spreadsheet form.
Sanwo-Olu’s genius is one of spectacle. He understands that in a nation of broken promises, a finished bridge is the most powerful rhetoric. He has turned infrastructure into a compelling political language.
While others talk about legacy, he lays the foundation for it. In the noisy, chaotic arena of Nigerian politics, Governor Sanwo-Olu has discovered a potent silence: the quiet hum of a departing train.
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