Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola has said
every resident of the state will henceforth be identified by a unique
identification number to be generated from a bio-metric data.
He added that the ID number would be unique to every individual
and would theirs until death.
The governor said this in Lagos on Thursday, during the
inauguration of the initiative, which would be handled by the Lagos State
Resident Registration Agency.
Fashola said the scheme was a 10-year journey that would help
the government to effectively plan and meet the needs of the state residents.
He said, “This is a watershed in the history of Lagos State, as
this will enable the state government register and collate the data of all the
residents in the state.
“The data gathered from the exercise will afford the state
emergency response team to respond to emergency effectively as they will not
need to ask for the caller’s data since he or she is calling from his
residence.”
He explained that the idea to have a data base of all residents
in the state was conceived in 2003 during the administration of his
predecessor, Bola Tinubu.
Fashola pointed out that although there were a lot of government
agencies in the country, data were insufficient. He expressed the confidence
that the state resident registration exercise would be used to fill the gaps in
Lagos.
He said, “For instance, we have data on the number of vehicle
owners in the state but not all the residents of Lagos own cars. And we also
know the number of the pupils in the public schools but not all children attend
public schools. All these showed that there is a gap required to be filled.”
The governor said an individual must have a means of
identification that showed that he or she resided in the state, adding that
indigenes of Lagos that lived in other states were not eligible for the
registration.
He argued that the development that the nation craved would not
occur if reliable data was not available, saying data had become the most
demanding currency in the world and the bases of information.
Earlier, the LASRRA General Manager, Ms. Olayinka Fashola, said
the aim of the exercise was to assist government to provide adequate social
amenities that would serve the people better.
She said, “The exercise will assist government in road
rehabilitation, provision of more schools, power and other social amenities for
the use of people. This will also enable the government to serve the people
better.”
She added that the registration would be continuous.
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