2nd October, 2013
By Tayo Ogunbiyi
As usual with most government policies and programmes, the recently inaugurated Lagos residents’ registration scheme is being viewed by different people from diverse perspectives. While some see it as a laudable plan, others see it as needless and unnecessary. A number of people even perceive it as another strategy by the Lagos State government to bring more people into the tax net. This divergent views over the project is, however, not surprising considering the metropolitan nature of Lagos State as a melting pot with over twenty million inhabitants that cut across different ethnic, tribal religious, political, social and religious divides.
It is, however, important that more light is shed on this novel government programme for a proper understanding of its intents and objectives.
To start with, on the insinuation that the programme is principally a tax drive’s stratagem, the Governor of the state, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has allayed that misgiving. While flagging off the residents’ registration exercise, the Governor explained that the exercise is not a tax drive as being speculated in some quarters. Rather, the programme is meant to guarantee adequate planning structure on where and how to provide required infrastructure for its residents. For instance, the database will help plan for housing and health-related matters such as health insurance as well as facilitate implementation of development projects.
A unique trait of the 21st century is its copious technological innovations. We are in a technologically driven age and any group of people or government that is oblivious of this reality would be left behind. Society has become more mobile and the information held electronically about persons and services by government agencies and other bodies have substantially increased. Hence, there is a growing need to integrate the residents of Lagos State into e-government initiatives to enable the services provided by government to be fully utilized and also provide an accurate picture for government policy and planning.
This initiative has the potential to address key challenges facing e-government and other initiatives. Various e-government initiatives have been enabled to collect electronic data and each operates autonomous of each other. To provide a more accurate picture for government policies and planning, a link must be established between these various stores of data. Consequently, the residents’ registration programme is expected to provide the state government with an electronic database with centralized, trustworthy and comprehensive source of information that would assist the state government with decision-making process and allocation of resources as it contains important and vital information about residents of the state.
The project targets everyone who lives in the state irrespective of state of origin. However, indigenes of the state that live in other parts of the country are not eligible for the registration, but any person, who lives in the state or is coming to live in the state for over six months, is eligible for registration. Residents can approach all the centres provided by the agency in the 20 Local Government Areas, LGAs and 37 Local Council Development Areas LCDAs, to register.
Every one that is currently residing in the state is required to register. Once you have been residing in the state for six months or more, you are eligible to register. After registration, quality checks are done followed by correction processes (where required). The data is then sent to the database, where the data undergoes various stages of screening and validations. This ensures that the source of data is authenticated ensuring that no duplicate exists. Thereafter, the resident’s unique identification number is generated. In case of any errors, the record goes on hold for further enquiry. Corrective actions are taken on such as contacting the applicant via the contact information given. This may take over five weeks to resolve. If a card needs to be replaced due to loss, theft or change of information, the resident should contact any of the registration stations across the state and make a request.
Immediately a resident is registered, he or she will be issued a temporary card with a unique identity number which will remain with the person for life, while his/her data is processed, verified and corrected, if necessary, before a permanent card is issued.
Every resident is eligible to register and be issued with the exclusive number, but only those from the age of 16 years above would obtain personal cards. Those below 16 would be registered as dependents of adult residents and will only get their own unique numbers when they attain the age of 16.
Residents could be captured either directly at the registration centres across the state or on the internet. However, those that choose to input their personal data on the internet via www.lagosresidents.gov.ng would still need to visit the designated centres to get their biometric information captured.
In order to institutionalize the project, the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency, LASRRA, was established in 2011 by an enactment of state law, by which it was fully empowered to implement a residents database and identification card program for Lagos State.
The goals of the agency include, establishing a reliable and easily updated database of all residents of Lagos State, providing useful information for social, political, business and financial activities, creating and documenting a unique means of identification of Lagos State residents, providing a highly secured identification card for all residents of the State and removing the veil of anonymity from every citizen of the state.
On a final note, the vision behind the residents registration initiative was to create a conurbation where every community has exactly enough public schools to cater for the children in it with the students having enough infrastructure, teachers and resources to get the best possible education, where the travel time was short and predictable, where there are enough hospitals, beds, doctors and nurses, where water runs in taps 24 hours every day and power was stable.
Any Government that exist for the people and not otherwise, must make data collection and management a critical aspect of its activities. Since, the people remain a focal point of the present government in Lagos state; it is imperative that government gathers and collates needed information that could enhance effective service delivery to the people. This is what the residents registration programme of the state government intends to achieve.
•Ogunbiyi works with Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja