Lagos Begins Residents Registration Exercise

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), on  Thursday flagged off the State’s Residents’ Registration exercise urging residents in the State, irrespective of state of origin, to get involved in the exercise at any of the registration centres across the State.

The exercise, being undertaken by officers of the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA), aims 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.

According to the Governor,  the Government has gathered considerable data from sources like vehicle licensing, drivers’ licensing, motorcycle riders’ scheme, tax payment, land ownership and enrolments in schools, among others.
                    
“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.

He said: “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 to 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."

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 will remain with them for the rest of their life.

He added that residents’ data will be processed, verified and corrected, if necessary, before permanent cards are 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.

In her remarks, General Manager of LASRRA, Ms Olayinka Fashola enumerated the benefits of the exercise 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, 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.

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 : Daily Times