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Chukwudi Nweje
The Lagos State Government has been urged to speed up the process of converting the 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in the state to full-fledged Local Government Areas (LGAs) to enable the generation of more revenue for infrastructural development in the State.
Former Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Kehinde Bamigbetan, made the appeal on Thursday during stakeholders meeting in Ejigbo hosted by the member representing Oshodi/Isolo Constituency 2 in the House of Assembly, Jude Idimogu.
He said that the huge financial needs of the state and its large population requires that the LCDAs become full local government councils, and noted that some States which were at par with the Lagos State have since attracted more revenues through the creation of local governments.
Idimogu noted that the conversion of the LCDAs to full local governments had been on the front burner for a very long time, even as leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state are worried about the delay in listing the 37 LCDAs in the constitution.
Idimogu, who is chairman House committee for wealth creation said the leaders of the party would undertake a political approach to resolve the issue.
“We will appeal to Lagosians to be hopeful, appeal to the conscience of the leadership of our party at the national level to see the reason why the gap should be bridged. From inception the State was at par with Kano, today Kano has 44 LGA and Jigawa which was created out of Kano has 27 LGAs. It is not fair, so I want to appeal to the President, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Assembly to heed to our request.”
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He said the timing for the meeting was apt considering that the 2021 budget was around the corner and there is a need to have inputs from various constituencies of the State for the next annual budget.
He also said that it was unfortunate that most of the year experienced the COVID-19 pandemic which necessitated the theme for the programme “Post COVID-19 Pandemic. The challenges and Prospects.”
He added, “We want to use the programme to articulate the opinions and needs of members of the constituency so that we have it as part of input in our 2021 budget. Apart from this, we also have secretaries who can take note of the requests of the constituents and collate them in the budget and that is the essence of the programme. We want to carry the constituents along in preparing our budgets, in fact, no constituency should be left out. We are representatives of the people, so we should not leave them out in our planning.”
Roseline Idimogu, the wife of the lawmaker, who spoke on the importance of women contributing to quelling the current tension in the state, said the town hall meeting also provided an opportunity to engage youths in the face of the #EndSARS protests and the need to ensure peace.
Funke Johnson, the wife of the member representing Oshodi/Isolo Constituency 2 in the House of Representatives, urged youths to be patient and listen to the voice of wisdom as the government was prepared to dialogue with them.
