Money Generated By Lagos Not Reflecting In Lives Of Lagosians — Odumakin

Yinka Odumakin, na­tional publicity sec­retary of Afenifere, has said the money Lagos State government gen­erates on a monthly basis is not reflecting in the lives of Lagosians, citing bad roads in the state as an example.

The report by the Econom­ic Confidential, an intelligence magazine in July, indicated that the Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) of Lagos State, which stood at N398 billion, is higher than that of 20 other states put together.

Also, Sam Egube, the state’s Commissioner for Eco­nomic Planning and Budget, revealed that it targets about 73.86b monthly IGR to finance the state’s 2020 N1.169trn bud­get. He also said the state gov­ernment’s projected IGR for 2020 is N886.041bn.

In July 2020, the state also received the sum of N10.16 billion federal allocation from the Federation Account Allo­cation Committee (FAAC).

However, speaking in an interview with Daily Indepen­dent, Odumakin, who lauded the efforts by Governor Baba­jide Sanwo-Olu to repeal the pension laws, also challenged him to beam his searchlight on the activities of Alpha Beta Consulting, a private company that reportedly got over N150 billion as 10 per cent commis­sion for “computing, tracking and reconciling” Lagos State’s Internally Generated Revenue since the year 2000, according to its former Managing Direc­tor, Oladapo Apara.

The rights activist also con­demned the extravagance and lavish spending in the seat of power, Alausa, saying cars that cannot be purchased by oil companies are being used by officials of the Lagos State government.

He said: “Ordinarily, we commend every effort to re­duce the cost of governance by repealing that insensitive pen­sion. It is a step in the right di­rection. The questions must be answered. Lagosians deserve to know and the media should help us find out who are the people that have been collecting these pensions. We know all the ex-governors who are alive, is it all of them that have been collecting this money?

“Let us have an idea of how much they have collected so far in order for us to know what that kind of money could have done in the lives of Lagosians because I know that a former governor of Lagos once said he has never collected the money and he is still alive today.

“Yes, the cancelation of the pension is okay but what of Alpha Beta? Will we contin­ue to pay 15 percent of Lagos State revenue to a private company? That should have been a place for Governor Sanwo-Olu to start.”