Lagos House petitions NASS over state’s special status, 57 LCDAs

The Lagos State House of Assembly has written the National Assembly, urging it to take steps that would enable the state enjoy a special status the Federal Government announced in principle while relocating the country’s capital city to Abuja.

The Chief Whip, Abiru Lateef, disclosed this to The Guardian yesterday in an interview as part of activities marking the one-year anniversary of the Eighth Assembly.

Lateef who is also chairman of the House Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Protocol, further revealed that apart from the issue of special status for the state, the Assembly also wrote to seek its support in listing the 57 local council development areas created by the then Asiwaju Bola Tinubu administration but which up till now are yet to be recognised by the country’s constitution.

The lawmaker said the House, in the alternative, requested the National Assembly to affirm the power of states to create as many councils as may be required by the circumstances and exigencies peculiar to each state.

Lateef further hinted that one other area the House had engaged the federal lawmakers was on the issue of state police which, he said, is particularly crucial to Lagos as a result of the peculiar nature of the state.

He explained that it was as result of the absence of state police that is making the state to commit the greater part of its income to security, which the lawmaker, noted was telling too much on the purse of the state.

The chief whip contended that the calls for a part-time legislature were ill-informed, saying the agitators failed to acknowledge that law-making goes beyond plenary as it involves work at the committee levels, oversight functions and interactions with constituents and the constituencies.

He dismissed insinuations that the House was a stooge of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode apparently due to the cordial relationship existing between the executive and legislative arms of government.