Lagos
State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), Thursday flagged off the
State’s Residents’ Registration exercise urging all those resident in
the State, irrespective of state of origin, to get involved in the
exercise at any of the many registration centres across the State.
The
exercise, being undertaken by officers of the Lagos State Residents
Registration Agency (LASRRA), is aimed at creating useful database of
all residents in Lagos State with a view to, among others, providing
useful information for social welfare, political, security, business,
employment and financial activities.
It
is also aimed at creating database for housing and demography
statistics for health related matters such as health insurance as well
as facilitating unified planning and implementation of development
projects.
Addressing
a diverse audience of professionals, businessmen and women, government
officials retired civil servants and other categories of residents of
Lagos State as well as a delegation from Kano State at the capacity
filled Adeyemi Bero Multi-purpose Hall at the Lagos State Secretariat
Alausa, Governor Fashola said the Government decided to pursue the
initiative because of its inherent benefits to the welfare of the
citizenry.
According
to the Governor, although the Government has gathered considerable data
from sources like vehicle licensing, drivers’ licensing, motorcycle
riders’ scheme, tax payment, land ownership and enrollments in schools,
among others, there still exists a gap created by those outside some or
even all of the aforementioned groups.
“In
an information technology driven age, data collection, processing and
management has become the gold standard and the most important currency
that any community can seek to acquire”, the Governor said adding that
Government has a responsibility to provide for all categories of its
citizens.
Governor
Fashola said the vision behind the residents registration initiative
was to create a City-State where every community has exactly enough
public schools to cater for the children in it with the students having
enough infrastructure, teachers and resources to get the best possible
education, where the travel time was short and predictable, where there
are enough hospitals, beds, doctors and nurses, where water runs in taps
24 hours every day and power was stable.
He declared, “The signs of that
City-State of our dream are emerging; because we are all living
witnesses to the improving levels of service delivery. Today’s event
enables us to leapfrog our way closer ro that dream”.“Any Government that seeks the kind of efficiency that we seek, any government that understands its primary purpose as we do,; that we exist for the people and not otherwise, such a government will pursue data collection and management as a critical infrastructure”, the Governor said.
Describing the launch as a watershed in the history of the State, Governor Fashola emphasized that the exercise was for only those resident in the State, irrespective of their State of origin adding that Section 22 of the enabling law defines “a resident” as “a person who resides temporarily or permanently in a long term accommodation in the State”.
“Our purpose and focus are the people who live here. Those are the people we have direct responsibility for and they are the people we seek to know so that we can serve them better. Those who reside outside the State are no less important but we do not provide water, transportation, security, education and other services for them”, the Governor said.
On
the process of registration, the Governor explained that immediately a
resident is registered, he or she will be issued a temporary card with a
unique identity number which, according to him, “will remain with you
for the rest of your life, while your data is processed, verified and
corrected, if necessary, before your permanent card is issued”.
He,
however, said although every resident was eligible to register and be
issued with the unique number, only those from the age of 16 years up
would get personal cards while those below that age would be registered
as dependents of adult residents and will only get their own unique
numbers adding that such category of persons would get their personal
cards when they attain the age of 16.
The
Governor said residents of some housing estates in the State have
started using their temporary registration cards, issued to them during
the pilot registration which was undertaken earlier in order to test the
readiness of the system, as the means of identifying residents of their
estates.
Giving
a brief history of LASRRA, he said the idea of a residents registration
itself was conceived in 2003 in his office as the Chief of Staff to the
then Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu in a discussion with Professor Yemi
Osinbajo as then Attorney General and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola who was
then Commissioner for Works on how to improve service delivery in the
State.
“I
passed the mandate as Governor to Dr. Femi Hamzat as Commissioner for
Science and Technology to develop the frame work for implementation”,
the Governor said adding that although Dr. Hamzat has moved to Ministry
of Works and Infrastructure, “the foundation had been laid for the
successor in the Ministry and the General Manager of LASRRA to
vigorously drive the implementation”.
Governor
Fashola, who cited the example of the recent flood disaster in Colorado
to emphasize the importance of data collection, said the exercise would
also enable Government to get the data of the physically challenged and
victims of natural or manmade disasters quicker amd more accurately
than using the traditional method.
“While
the traditional methods may be useful in gathering such information, it
is unarguable that accuracy is questionable and speed becomes an issue
as we have seen in our attempt to try to enumerate people entitled to
compensation within our State”, the Governor said, adding that the
exercise is not going to be a rush-rush one but a continuous process
with provision for regular updates.
He,
however, urged all residents “to take the quickest opportunity to
benefit from this so that we can collate our final data, print cards and
issue them before opening for update of new residents” adding that
Government has also provided mobile registration teams that would visit
offices and business places who have more than 100 staff in their
employment.
Commending
public servants in all the supporting Ministries for working very hard
“especially the leadership and staff of the Ministry of Science and
Technology and the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency”, Governor
Fashola urged residents to ensure that they register only once in order
not to create difficulties for the collating officials.
He, however, assured that even this
error could not defeat the efforts of the Government in getting accurate
data pointing out that although it could add to the implementation time
for data verification, the Automatic Finger Print Identification System
(AFIS) has the capacity for facial and fingerprint identification.
Pointing
out that the officials of LASRRA have planned painstakingly for the
worst while hoping for the best, Governor Fashola declared, “Only you
residents can give them the best by complying with the rules and
regulations for registration by enlisting in the process and showing the
world why Eko is the Centre of Excellence”.
In
her remarks, General Manager of LASRRA, Ms Olayinka Fashola enumerated
the benefits of the exercise to include enabling Government to know the
number of people to cater for as an incentive to determining the overall
resources required to formulate and implement policies, projects and
programmes for the people.
Also
in his remarks, the Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr.
Olufemi Hamzat urged every resident to take part in the exercise
pointing out that the days of ambiguity of people have gone forever.
According to him 30 countries of the world including India and Burkina
Faso, were undertaking the same exercise.
In his goodwill message, Chairman of
Home Foundation Estate in Isheri-Olofin, Mr. Rotimi Olorunsoye,
commended the State Government for embarking on the exercise adding that
once again the Government has scored a first in the country as well as
proved that it is a Government that keeps promises while a Mr. Yomi
Odunuga of Berger Paints also praised the State Governor for the
far-reaching people-orientated policies of his administration.
And
earlier in his welcome address, Commissioner for Science and
Technology, Mr. Biyi Mabadeje, also urged resident to cooperate with the
registration officials of LASRRA in order to get the most reliable
data.
Also
present at the occasion were members of the State Executive Council
including Head of Service, Prince Adesegun Ogunlewe, Chairman House
Committee on Education, Hon. Wahab Alawiye-King, Special adviser on the
Environment, Mr. Taofik Folarinn, Permanent Secretaries, Traditional
rulers, Community leaders and other prominent residents of Lagos,
representatives of the Kano State Government led by the Special Adviser
to the Governor of Kano State on Special Projects, Dr. Umar Abdulkadir
Kwaisa, as well as other top government functionaries.
Source: Channels TV
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