11th August, 2010
Appeal has gone to the Lagos State Government to check the excesses of officials of some of its agencies including LASTMA and KAI Brigade.
Making the appeal was a pressure group known as Lagos Accountability and Good Governance Society (LAGOS), in a press release.
The group stated that the two organisations have turned to squads of intimidation, oppression and extortion, rather than their basic duties of service to the people.
The group also decried what it called unbearable multiple taxation by the state government.
It noted that over-taxation may enrich the government but make the people to become poorer, while also berating inflated contracts awarded by some government agencies in the state to enrich their friends and members of their immediate family.
LAGOS called on the state government to cater for over one million people that were rendered jobless and homeless in Oshodi, Makoko and other slums that were demolished, while also bringing the attention of government to the inhuman treatment of commercial motorcycle operators commonly called okada riders by state security operatives.
In a related development, the group has condemned the use of Black Maria by some government agencies in the state, saying such method was not adopted even during military regimes and that it will not be proper to continue to humiliate the people of Lagos who hawk on the roadsides to survive, having had their shops and kiosks demolished without affordable alternatives.