Lagos deploys ICT in N21m residency scheme

By BISI OLALEYE
Owing to the need to have a more accurate data base of residents, the governor of Lagos state, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola recently flagged off the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA)  in the state.
He was however, quick to allay the fears of some residents and dismissed insinuations that the residents’ registration project of the state was designed for taxation.
A residency requirement is also that period of time for which a person has to be a resident of a particular place in order to be qualified to run either for  political office or basic amenities.While a legal residence is established when an individual move to a new state. In foreign countries, things that prove residency are drivers license, a bank account in that state, transferring car registration and paying taxes in the new state. If for intance, he moved to Enugu (for school or permanent business) but kept everything else in Lagos, he might not even qualify as a resident.
Making the clarification at the unveiling of the registration exercise at the state secretariat, Fashola noted that the registration was to enable the state government generate a dependable database of all residents, which he said, would help in planning for development purpose.
The governor further explained that the registration was meant to collate basic information about every resident of the state, which according to him, would be used for economic planning and development.
“No nation could survive without the means of planning for the populace. With this  exercise, government would be able to formulate policies that would cater for the residents of the state.
“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 means of data collation, the governor stated that mobile technology grew to allow ICT at all times and biometrics and data capturing in the cloud will be used.
Fashola added that government came up with the idea of registering residents of Lagos because it discovered many gaps as government did not know the actual number of residents it had to plan for, stressing that the residents registration exercise would be handy to fill those gaps.
“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 of them attend school; all these showed that there is a gap required to be filled.
“Every individual must have a means of identification that showed that he or she resided in the state”, adding that data collection and gathering had become the pole standard of any community that took planning seriously, stressing that government was determined to achieve result.
The governor commented that while the traditional methods might be useful in gathering such information, it was unarguable that accuracy was questionable as speed would become an issue, saying that “as we have seen in our attempt to try to enumerate people entitled to compensation within our state.
“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”, he said.
Earlier in her welcome  speech,General Manager, LASRRA, Ms. Olayinka Fashola, stated that the aim of the exercise was to assist government to provide adequate social amenities that would serve the people better, adding that “the exercise will assist government in roads rehabilitation, provision of more schools, power and other social amenities for the use of people.
The LASRRA boss disclosed that the Agency has been working under ground for five years and that registration will be both online and direct form.
However, she pointed out that registration can only be completed when a biometric centre is visited.
Said she:”Registration is free and it is valid for 12 months, after which, it will be replaced by permanent residency.Our mobile registration team will visit orphanages, physically challenged, markets, factories and other places”. Adding that special registration centres are scattered across the local governments in the state.