The Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr Obafemi Hamzat has identified three things which he said are existential threats to the state.
This was even as he said that the state government wants parents and guardians to be involved in the life of their wards who attend public schools, hence the state insists on operation show your Lagos State Residents Registration Agency ( LASTRA) cards.
Dr Hamzat made these assertions Wednesday in Lagos during a Media Chat with journalists at the Eko Hotel& Suits, Victoria Island, Lagos.
At the event which was organised by the Office of Political, Legislative & Civic Engagement(OPL& CE), Hamzat, identified the three existential threats to be extreme heat, extreme flooding and the rise in sea level which brings about severe flooding.
He said: Over 7 million Lagosians visited our General Hospitals last year to access treatment. That is a huge number. Go to our housing/ social developments, you will see a lot of people there. It is filled to the brim.
There are three existential threats we have in Lagos. Our state is below sea – level. We have flooding.
However, it is not limited to Lagos. We had flooding in Spain, where over 200 people died. It is the same thing that happened in Australia, it happened in China where 42 people died because of flooding.”
He said: Our greater threats are extreme heat, extreme cold and water rising above sea level.
If we do not move water, water will move you. That is why when you see the Ministry of the Environment removing structures on waterways, people begin to read ethnicity and religion into it.
That is why we invite you who disseminate information to let people see the danger these things pose to us.”
On the insistence of the government that parents must come to the school to identify themselves, it is because they want them to be involved in the lives of their wards and not just provide for their needs.
He said: “Experience has shown that most people bring inwards from outside Lagos and promised their parents that they would sponsor them in school and once they enrolled them in public schools, they never bother to attend PTA( Parents Teachers Association) Meetings.
We want the school to know them. We are not asking parents to pay ₦10,000 for tax. Whoever does that is extortion and the Lagos State government does not authorise it.”
Hamzat said this in response to some pupils of public schools in the Alagbado area who appeared on a private radio station that they were sent out of school because their parents/ Guardians could not afford the tax they asked them to pay.
Earlier, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Civil Engagement, Dr. Afolabi Tajudeen said that his office has been involved in a lot of activities in creating synergy between the executive, and legislature as well as engaging the civil populate.
Also, he said that this year alone, the OPL& CE engaged the civil populace when they came protest to the office of the governor.
He listed the recent protest by the parents over the recent hike in school fees paid by the pupils of the state-owned model schools, and the end of bad governance protests among others.
He called on the media to partner with the office with the view to disseminating information on the activities of the state government and also bring feedback to them, to enable them to know what the people make of government policies.
