Yuletide: Lagos tasks military, paramilitary on innovations

Mrs. Bimbola Salu-Hundeyin, the Secretary to the Lagos State Government has tasked the military and paramilitary on innovations to ensure a safer city.

Salu-Hundeyin gave the charge at the Quarterly Meeting with the Military, Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC) and Secretaries to the Local Government Areas and Local Council Development Areas (Scribes 57) in Ikeja.

She said in a statement on Wednesday that the military and paramilitary should ensure that the state is safe, as people celebrated the Yuletide.

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“When you do something good, they say the result for hard work is more work. They need to do more. They should come up with more innovations, not only just to be relevant to government and to governance but to ensure that Lagos remains the safest city that we can think of in Africa.

“So they should come up with more innovations. They should be willing to work with us more, not just meetings. They should be able, if you call them for emergency, they must be ready to come with us,” the SSG said.

She commended members of the PCRC for the selfless works they are doing to ensure that residents of communities in the state are safe.

Salu-Hundeyin said that members of the PCRC are civilians who had decided to work with the police to ensure that all residents could sleep with their eyes closed.

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According to her, the beauty of the group is the fact that they are not civil servants or uniformed men but have chosen to give the society their time and wherewithal to ensure that all are living a secured life.

“This yuletide period, we have discussed a lot of things on how we will ensure that there will be no breakdown of law and order.

“Due to traffic management and transportation, which is a big issue in Lagos, state, the PCRC asked the police to train them and over 300 people have been trained, who will always assist traffic officers when there is gridlock on the road, and this is very good.

“This is what we call an inclusive government, and that is what this government is all about. Everybody is on board to ensure that greater Lagos keeps rising, and that we keep living better than any other state,” she said.

The SSG urged Scribe 57, military and paramilitary to ensure that whatever palliative that would be distributed this season was done in accordance with guidelines that the state government had put in place, so as to avoid disheartening outcomes.

“My advice to residents at this yuletide season is, it is a time of joy. It is a time of rejoicing. Let us be careful how we go about it, so that the joy of the season will not be turned into something else.

“People should learn. We have a problem in Nigeria, we don’t like queuing for things. You get to the bus stop, people are rushing. Even at the end of the day, the bus may not be full.

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“We must learn to be patient. We must learn to take turns, we must learn to say ‘after you’. It’s decency, this is what we are talking about, and if we can do that, honestly, we can distribute trillions of palliatives and it will get to everybody,” she said.

The PCRC Chairman, Mr. Kehinde Sowemimo, urged philanthropists who might want to distribute palliatives to always involve the police, to help check the crowd.

“We are the eye of police in the communities, I have looked at the community to see areas where security should be enhanced, to be improved on, and call on appropriate authority as quickly as possible to make sure that there is no breakdown of law and order,” Sowemimo said.