Lagosians want Sanwo-Olu to prioritise healthcare, security, others

Lagosians have urged Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to improve performance in healthcare, traffic management, security, road network, employment, education among other critical sectors, going forward.

They made this call following data obtained by Emani (a rapid & robust survey consults) after a painstaking survey carried out on citizens’ perceptions on governance of Lagos State, specifically with respect to budget delivery, promises and general expectations.

At a press brief in Lagos recently, the initiator of the survey, HEDA Resource Centre, a leading anti-corruption good governance civil society organisation, said the essence of the survey was to beam its spotlight on critical sector, arms and tiers of government with a view to gaining insight on how people perceive the government and its activities.

Presenting the report to the public, Olarenwaju Suraju, chairman of HEDA, said another key aim of the effort was to measure people’s expectations of government with a view to serving as a feedback mechanism to government and other stakeholders.

According to him, the research instrument (a questionnaire) was administered by members of the Emani community using stratified random sampling spread across age, gender, disability, socio-economic and religious status and across all local government areas of Lagos State.

“The survey was conducted in Lagos between January 19 and 21, 2022 with 457 respondents. The respondents were spread across gender, comprising 236 men and 218 women; age, comprising 195 respondents under 25 years, 163 respondents between ages 25 and 34 and 101 respondents above 35 years old. Out of the respondents, 53 self-identified as having a disability and overall, an average of 20 responses were received across each local government area of Lagos State.

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“More than half (61%) of respondents have no idea what the Lagos State budget contains; five percent of the respondents expressed satisfaction with the Lagos State government’s overall performance; about 40 percent of respondents believe that the Lagos State government needs to improve its performance in critical sectors; 15 percent of young people consider the approach of the Lagos State government to education effective; up to 43 percent of them say the approach needs improvement while 11 percent of female respondents consider the state government effective in creating economic opportunities. About half of them (45%) said the situation needs improvement,”

The document recommended that the government should ensure a participatory budgetary process in managing and administering the state. They also charged the state assembly to make public and proactively disclose copies of the budget passed immediately after passage.

Also considering the spate of insecurity and increasing rate of unemployment, the document recommended that the government must renew its obligation to rededicate attention towards creating sustainable jobs for the teeming youths and also providing security across the state.

The roads of Lagos State are unbefitting of the economic hub of Nigeria and sixth largest economy in Africa. The internally generated revenue of the government should be sufficiently deployed to build mass-oriented infrastructure for the State.

On health, it was emphasised that the wealth of a nation is dependent on the health of the citizens. Since the health of average citizens and residents epitomises the health of the state, the government should prioritise affordable and quality health for the citizens.