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Lagos Assembly constitutes 36 standing committees

By Kehinde Olatunji |   15 October 2019   |   4:13 am  

The Speaker, Lagos House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa PHOTO: TWITTER/LSHA

Urges Sanwo-Olu to restructure disability affairs, awareness campaign offices
Speaker of Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa, yesterday reeled out the standing committees of the House.

The Ninth Assembly had been operating with ad-hoc committees since its inauguration on June 7, 2019.

The Speaker is chairman of the Selection Committee while the Chief Whip, Lateef Abiru, heads the Ethics/Protocol Privileges committee.

Other committees and their chairmen include House Services (Tijani Olatunji), Public Accounts (Local) (Fatai Mojeed), Public Accounts (State) (Moshood Oshun), Agriculture (Kehinde Joseph), Economic Planning and Budget (Gbolahan Yishawu), Special Duties and Inter-governmental Relations (Kazeem Raheem) and Education (Yinka Ogundimu), among others.

Meanwhile, the House has urged Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to restructure the State Office of Disability Affairs for more effective discharge of its duties and responsibilities.

It also implored him to direct the Ministry of Information and Strategy to embark on awareness campaign to educate Lagos residents on the significance of white cane used by the blind and visually-impaired persons through the state-owned media.

Abiru, representing Somolu II, who moved the motion on the need to ensure the safety of the blind and visually-impaired persons in Lagos during plenary yesterday, sought awareness campaign on the issue at the local council level.

Abiru further noted that there were over four million people in Nigeria living with visual impairment according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which he said, necessitated the need to accord special privileges to this group of people.

The lawmaker, who noted that the white cane, which is a symbol of mobility for the blind or visually-impaired persons to enable them scan their environment for obstacles or marks, afford them the right of way when crossing the road alone and help other road users to identify them, lamented the low awareness among Lagos residents on the symbolic meaning of the white cane, which he said, had led to various road accidents and incidents, causing further physical harm or deaths to the visually-impaired.

In his contribution, Yishawu, representing Eti-Osa Constituency II, said that there was need for the government to do more on road construction, saying that this would aid the movement of the blind and visually-impaired people.

Desmond Elliot, representing Surulere I, said that it was heart-rendering that there was no data to work with on the blind.

“I have not seen people with white cane before, and this is the motion we have to take seriously and privately-owned media should be involved in the campaign,” he said.

Tunde Braimoh, representing Kosofe II, said there was need to call on the ministry of education to include white cane awareness in schools’ curriculum.

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