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.
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