Eko Hot Blog reports that the Lagos State House of Assembly has imposed strict monitoring mechanisms to checkmate all 57 Local Government Area Chairmen, their deputies, and councilors.
The Speaker of the Lagos Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa, said council officials in Lagos were the only ones with four-year terms in the country. Yet, it is heartbreaking how they have neglected the masses at the grassroots and personalise monthly allocations given to them.
The Speaker, at a separate meetings with the council chairmen, vice chairmen, councilors, and senior staff of the councils, said the Lagos Assembly has received reports that most chairmen are not meeting the expectations of their people.
For this reason, the assembly has decided to ensure strict compliance in the interest of the people at the grassroots level.
Obasa told the council chairmen and other officials, “Each council chairman must adopt a policy that every quarter, there must be something to show that you are truly in office. Let there be something to commission.
“If you’re to construct a road, it shouldn’t be one that would last for a month or a year. It should be something that would make people pray for you each time they pass through it. Let’s truly serve our people.”
Furthermore, the Lagos Speaker, who noted it would no longer be business as usual for the council chairmen, criticized the public office holders for the aloofness they have exhibited at that level of government to the detriment of the expectations of Lagosians.
He stated, “I wonder how you sleep with your eyes closed while your council cannot even build and equip a good maternity centre. You can’t justify the fact that in six months, there is no meaningful project done by you in your community.
Some councils have no single project for over two years, you treat the vice chairmen and councillors like they must be subservient even when you are going astray. Some of your councillors have not received official vehicles up till now.
“Some of your councils do not have legislative chambers, meaning that the councillors have not been holding sittings. How, then do you get approvals for the money you spend?
“We are aware of how some of these councils go ahead to borrow money up to nine-digit figures without approvals or due process and how they lease council property without caution. We won’t allow these to happen again.
“It is now strictly going to be true governance at the grassroots level. If you don’t develop your communities, where would you fall back to when you leave office? How would the people see you?”
The Lagos Speaker, in a statement issued by his Media Assistant, Eromosele Ebhomele, also warned the chairmen, the council managers, and treasurers against constituting themselves into a power bloc that runs the councils without inputs from vice chairmen and councillors, who are supposed to issue approvals for spending and projects
He continued, “We are here today to talk to each other. This is no witch-hunt. But I want you to always ask yourselves if you have been doing well for the people who voted you into office. How well have you been treating your vice chairmen, councillors, and staff too?
“Some of you were vice chairmen before, and you bitterly complained about your chairmen. Now that you are chairmen, what have you done to change what you complained about? How have you bettered those working with you? How have you changed the lives of your councillors?
You need to have the fear of God and treat the people around you right. We (my colleagues and I) seriously made efforts passed through a lot to amend the law for your benefits and to make you stay in office for four years. You need to think about the public and how to touch them.
“The best way to handle your office is to touch lives and do things that would make people speak well of you later in life. We have not asked you for money. All we are saying is that you do things for the progress of our state.
“The governor of our state cannot do it all alone. You are, therefore, supposed to be the nearest to the grassroots and help him with your own efforts.
“We must try to move with the moment. The world is moving, and we can’t continue to do things like we live in the past.” he added.
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