Prior to that time, Oshodi was the headquarters of all sorts of madness in Lagos. That part of Lagos was notorious for chaos, robbery and rape. Anybody could be a victim anytime from 8 pm.

Bolade to the bus stops after the bridge used to be an insane sight of wandering pedestrians, rickety and disfigured commercial buses with gangs of pick-pockets and traders who believed they could erect their stalls at any available space including rail tracks.

Bolade to Cappa bus stop is not more than a kilometer but driving through the sea of pedestrians could take a patient driver two hours. A crazy one would recklessly do it in one hour while raining curses on everyone that blocked the way.

Oshodi was the embodiment of everything that was wrong about Lagos in terms of poor traffic regulation, lawlessness, and criminality among citizens.

However, between the night of December 31, 2008, when the whole of Lagos seemed to have gone for cross over nights, and January 1, 2009, when the city appeared empty because the bulk of its occupants had returned to their villages to celebrate the festive season, a miracle happened.

Fashola had cleared the roads, the shanties on the rail tracks, the hoodlums’ hideouts under the bridge exposed and all the dark spots in the area were lit up.

After that small win in Oshodi, the Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) guys descended on Obalende to weed out the colony of louts living under the bridge. From there, they moved to the streets in Mushin, Surulere, and Yaba removing shops with extensions in front of houses. Traders selling on the roads were cleared, landlords were prompted to paint their dirty houses by the roadsides, and a lot of reckless danfo drivers ‘received sense’.

The man at the helm of affairs had no stomach for nonsense. It didn’t take long for Lagosians to believe that the fear of Fashola was the beginning of wisdom.

Fashola was able to check the recklessness of okada riders. He banned them from plying certain routes and made them to be more safety conscious. His administration appeared too strict for Lagosians at first, but in the end, everyone was happy with him because he stepped on their toes for good reasons.

However, it should be remembered that the ex-governor did all this without wearing khaki or wielding guns around the streets forcing people to obey his commands.

That’s the kind of hands that can handle Lagos’ lawlessness. This city is too recalcitrant and the present governor of the state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, is yet to show us the kind of hands that can effectively handle the lawlessness in the state.

Governor Sanwo-Olu is keeping an appearance of a gentleman. His demeanor is that of a nice guy who doesn’t want to step on toes in order to keep his second term dream alive.

Some acts of indiscipline that were buried under Fashola, and checked during Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration, are being resuscitated. The flagrant abuse of traffic laws by commercial bus drivers is now very common on Lagos roads.

Vandals are on the prowl, destroying pipelines and wreaking havoc on Lagosians’ properties as victims continue to wonder the effort Lagos government is making to tackle pipeline vandalism in areas like Ijegun and Isheri Idimu, where destruction of public properties is a means of livelihood for hoodlums.

From January to December, pipeline explosion has happened four times at Idowu Egba in Isheri-Idimu area of the state and the state government is allegedly not taking any serious steps to address the problem in the community.

A group of landlords, who spoke to Pulse over the fire incident in the area on Thursday, December 5, 2019, lamented that Lagos State government is not making any concrete effort to save their lives.

It is unfortunate that a community, where fire incidents happen incessantly has no effective security system to check vandals’ activities. It’s more unfortunate that each time the pipelines explode; members of the community are often left to resort to self-help due to poor emergency service.

“The ambulance came three or four hours after the explosion. In a saner clime, when they send fire fighter to (scenes of fire incident) ambulance must follow in case there are casualties. When the fire fighters quenched the fire, they could not do anything to the man that was struggling to survive,” one of the landlords lamented.

Residents living at Idowu-Egba, Ijegun and some other parts of Isheri-Idimu area of Lagos State are very close to pipelines that carry premium motor spirit from one end to another; and since pipeline explosions have been causing havocs and claiming lives in these communities, the Lagos Government is yet to put any effective measures in place to stop the recurrence of the preventable incident.

In July, when Sanwo-Olu visited victims of pipeline explosion at the General Hospital in Gbagada, the governor issued a gentleman’s warning to pipeline vandals in the Ijegun area of the state asking them to have a rethink.

He said, “This kind of unfortunate incident must be a lesson for all of us. We cannot continue to witness the loss of lives to this kind of preventable crimes. Those who are bent on citizens on making illegal wealth at the expense of other people’s lives should have a rethink.”

Have a rethink? Your excellency, that statement is too soft for an incident in which more than 10 people died due to severe and high degree burns suffered from the inferno.

No governor should ‘pet’ criminals whose actions endanger the lives of citizens with such a mild warning. 

How come nobody has been arrested since criminals have been tampering with pipelines at Idowu-Egba and Ijegun? 

These vandals are not aliens. Some of them live in the communities where the atrocities are committed. The police know them by name. Officers of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) know where they live and the traditional leaders, whose salary the governor pays, are aware of vandals’ moves in their communities.

A police officer, who spoke to Pulse about the recent fire incident at Idowu-Egba on December 5, said, “I know what our boys (police) can do. Every Friday, they go to collect cuts (money) from these people (the vandals). I want to assure you that the DPO in that area cannot deny knowing the criminals in that area except he/she is new in the area. The landlords, the ‘agberos and omo-onile’ (motor park boys and landowners’ sons) in the community are also aware of the people tampering with pipelines in the area and NSCDC officials are the ones monitoring pipelines in these communities, they can’t tell me they don’t know anything because they are the ones in charge of the pipelines”.

The recent fire incident caught the attention of international media like Al-Jazeera, Sky News and Reuters, and for that incident to have happened four times in a year in the same community is no doubt a dent on Sanwo-Olu’s administration. 

Posterity will not remember the governor who pays the hospital bills of victims in his state after a fire explosion. As a governor, you’ll not be remembered for how much visit you made to hospitals to condole victims’ families, but you’ll be remembered for how much effort you make to prevent disasters and deal with culprits.

Mr. Governor, Lagosians do not want you to point and pay lip service to issues. They want to see a governor in action. They believe you know what to do, you're just not doing it yet, perhaps because of your second term ambition.

This piece is not urging you to become undemocratic, but there’s a reason Lagosians refer to Fashola as ‘action governor’. You may need to borrow a leaf or two from his administration.