Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Gbenga Omotoso, at the weekend took a retrospective look at the performance of the state’s 2025 ₦3.366 trillion budget, revealing that it recorded an impressive 80 per cent cumulative performance.

, who spoke to journalists on the state of the state, said, “As of September, it is about 79 per cent. But it’s over 80 per cent performance now. In terms of revenue, we are also doing very well, and in terms of capital projects, we have done about 80 per cent.
“And we are doing very well. And I think that the project is working. There is no community that has not felt the positive effects of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s administration. When we had the community day, we could see the excitement on their faces.

“If the government was not doing well in their areas, we would not see such solidarity. We would not see such comradeship. We would not see such excitement.
“In fact, most of the things that we are doing are based on all those communities because it has an agreement with local governments about how to build roads, about how to build their schools.

“I remember at one point, they said the local governments should build X number of roads. The state government would match it. So all those communities, people are very happy now to go to Badagry. They want to live in Badagry. People want to live in Ikorodu. People want to live in Igbogbo. Don’t forget one of the very best housing estates that the Lagos State Government has is in Igbogbo. Don’t forget that we have built more than 15 jetties that have been used in all these local communities.

You want to travel from Ikorodu all the way to Lagos Island; it’s about less than 30 minutes. It’s because of what the Lagos State Government has done in all those local communities.”
Speaking on the demolition at Trade Fair Complex, the commissioner ruled out the insinuation in some quarters that it was targeted at some people.

He said, “It’s terrible for anybody to be making such suggestions. It’s absurd. It’s unthinkable. Because Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has governed Lagos now for about six years, and in those six years, nobody has come out to complain that he has had anything to do with any segregation or discrimination, either in terms of religion, colour, or race. Lagosians are Lagosians, and we all know this.

“All of those things that they are talking about — discrimination — are things that people who don’t even know us are talking about, people who don’t even live in Lagos.

“Some of those things that you see on social media, you go and check out all of those who are perpetrating them. They are people who don’t live here, who live millions and millions of miles away. And talking specifically about Trade Fair, I mean, how can you build a house without a permit? It’s not done anywhere.

“And the government said, look, you can’t do this. It is owned by the Federal Government. That’s fine. What the law says, according to the Supreme Court judgement of a 2003 Attorney-General of Lagos versus Attorney-General of the Federation, supported by other states who came into the matter, is that only the states have the permission, the right, the powers to issue permits for anybody to go and build. And that is the way it’s done all over the world. If you go to New York, if you go to Los Angeles, if you go to Mumbai, if you go to Chicago — everywhere — you must obtain a building permit before you can build.

“So I do not want to say people are ignorant, but honestly, there is so much to be desired — that people can go and build skyscrapers, and then you ask them for their papers, the building permit. They don’t have any. And that they can build anyhow the way they like and turn the whole place into a slum.”