…set to occupy Alausa secretariat for two months
A civil rights organisation, Save Lagos Group, has described the current administration of Governor Akinwumi Ambode as a burden on the over 25 million residents of Lagos State.
In a statement at the weekend, by the Convener of the Group, Comrade Adeniyi Sulaiman, the SLG added that it had concluded arrangements with likeminded organisations to occupy the state secretariat in Alausa, Ikeja, for two months, “to continuously mount pressure on the government to change its ways, which are inimical to the wellbeing of the people of the state.”
Appraising the state of things in the state with specific reference to the recent hike in the Land Use Charge, Sulaiman, in the statement, said, “We are convinced now more than ever before that Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and members of his All Progressives Congress in Lagos State do not have the interest of the people at heart.
“Through their actions and inactions, their speeches and body language, we are now of the view that the current government, through its officials, is working for the interest of a certain godfather who has cornered the resources of the state for personal aggrandizement.”
He added, “We are calling on well-meaning individuals and organisations to speak out against the rape of our common patrimony by a privileged few who have held the reins of authority since the advent of democratic rule in 1999.”
While describing the situation as portending dire consequences for the peace and security of the state, Sulaiman stated that “the desire of the state government to further push the residents of the state to the abyss of economic misery will engender mass resistance, which we are ready to lead.
He noted that the current efforts to hike fees payable as Land Use Charge by the Ambode-led government was akin to the Lagos State Environmental Management and Protection Law of 2017, which rendered many residents of the state poor via job losses and failure in the waste management objectives of the government.
“Like the law they promulgated for the management of waste in 2017, this law will further serve to pauperise the people of the state even the more. When operational, the people who have had to bear the brunt of the current harsh economic environment in the country but are struggling to pay the current charges, will be too hard-pressed to pay the exorbitant fees that are far beyond their reach.
“Unfortunately, we are all living witnesses to the failure of the draconian environmental law, which was captured in the state government designed initiative tagged, Cleaner Lagos Initiative that replaced Nigerians with a foreign firm, VISIONSCAPE. Unlike before, our streets are further dirty with likely scourge of epidemic in the state, owing to the desire by the governor to satisfy his friends and godfather,” he said.
He added that the promulgation of the law led to losses of over 3,500 jobs as the waste managers, with nothing to do now, opted to disengage the affected workers in their employment.
He noted that the new law, when operational alongside some other revenue mobilisation policies and programmes of the state government, would render businesses and commercial business owners poorer with attendant loss of jobs by the less-privileged.
“The new law is repressive, insensitive, callous, barbaric, unlawful, and unconstitutional; and he it is consistent with the state government’s philosophy of further dragging the people into the abyss of want, poverty and misery, while the privileged members of the ruling class enjoy themselves to the detriment of the teeming masses,” Sulaiman lamented.
