19th October, 2011
The Lagos State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has appealed to Lagosians to troop out en mass on Saturday and vote for the party in the local government election. The party said that changing a performing team will not augur well for Lagosians and good governance in Lagos.
In a statement signed by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Joe Igbokwe, in Lagos, the party said the appeal is necessary given the opposition’s campaign that inner roads in Lagos are neglected. The party assured Lagosians that the ACN government and the party are committed to the total development of all parts of Lagos.
“We urge Lagosians to come out en mass and vote our great party, which has shown a great commitment to take Lagos to the next level as the nation’s mega city and a commercial nerve centre. We want to assure Lagosians that the Lagos State government will reach all nooks and crannies of Lagos with its development programmes and implored them to be patient with the government that has done tremendously enough to lift Lagos from a seedy city to a modern and working mega city that will drive the nation’s economic revival.
“As the local government election approaches, we have noted an upsurge in the negative campaign of hitherto moribund political parties and their candidates who profess no commitment to the development of Lagos. We have noted the erroneous campaign being mounted by desperate parties and their candidates that Lagos inner roads are irreparably bad. We want to inform Lagosians that no state or even the Federal Government faces the same challenge as Lagos on roads.
“We want to assure them that one after the other, these roads will be attended to and that this government will not rest until the entire state achieves its desired status as the state of choice.
“We observe that these campaigns that excel in magnifying some bad roads in Lagos do not try to acknowledge the many roads that have been transformed in Lagos.
“We want to let Lagosians know that the local councils are faced with huge problems of road maintenance, education, sanitation, staff salaries and sundry other responsibilities and cannot attend to all the roads in their local councils with the paltry amount they receive as monthly allocations. Lagosians must know that the need to give commensurate attention to all needs necessitated our belief that Lagos needs more local government areas commensurate to its population and why we have been championing the creation of more local governments in Lagos, with all the benefits commensurate with this number. Presently Lagos has 20 LGAs and 37 LCDAs and as we speak Lagos receives allocation for only 20 LGAs. This is what goes for the 57.
“We want to let Lagosians know that with the limited fund at its disposals, and with the mounting problems they face, the Lagos local councils are doing well but we will compel them to do better and catch up with the fast pace of development Governor Fashola has initiated in Lagos.
“We, therefore, assure Lagosians of better performance of the local councils with the renewed confidence that will come from their full endorsement this Saturday. We want to let Lagosians know that we will not fail them and ask for total vote for the ACN.â€