Lagos residency ID plan

Officials said that the card would aid planning, budgeting and determine the number of people to be provided for in terms of social services.  The scheme looks like a good idea on the surface, but more light needs to be shed on it in order to disabuse the minds of members of the public that […]

Officials said that the card would aid planning, budgeting and determine the number of people to be provided for in terms of social services.  
The scheme looks like a good idea on the surface, but more light needs to be shed on it in order to disabuse the minds of members of the public that there is an ulterior motive behind the project. The Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRA) was established in 2011 to implement a residents’ database and identification card.  In launching the scheme, Governor Babatunde Fashola noted that he had often queried population figures ascribe to Lagos State. According to him, the residency figures that the scheme would generate would be more reliable than those provided by the national census. A situation in which every state determines its own population figures would be a chaotic one indeed.
 The National Population Commission (NPC) is the statutory body empowered to conduct census of the number of citizens in each part of the country. Should individual states require a database for planning purposes, this should not necessarily mean a separate ID card scheme. Data on the number of schools and their student populations, the number of taxpayers, the number if civil servants, the number of hospital patients, and the registration of births and deaths, and the number of vehicles on the roads, should provide requisite information and figures for planning the provision of social services. The Lagos scheme has understandably raised suspicion because of a precedent in which another state government asked non-indigenes to register with it and be issued identification documents.  In fact, Lagos State was itself recently involved in a messy policy of “deporting” non-residents back to the eastern parts of the nation.  The new regulation unrealistically assumes that every resident of Lagos has a fixed address. This cannot be true.  The idea that these ID cards can be used to track criminals is worrisome. Identifying and dealing with criminals is the business of the Nigeria Police Force, not that of the Lagos State Government. Lagos is a listed international city and should expect that there will be lots of visitors that go to it every day, all year round. Moreover, it is the norm that many Nigerians reside and conduct businesses in more than one location in different states.  A good example is the Federal Capital Abuja, which is very busy at weekdays but virtually empty at weekends when residents move to their alternative places of abode.  At elections, many large cities record lower number of voters than expected because the electorates, although they live in the city, choose to register and vote in their states of origin as defined by the government.  
Besides, the Lagos scheme only adds to the proliferation of ID cards in the country, one of the problems the National ID card was meant to address, certifying that the holder is a citizen of Nigeria. Since the Constitution of the country guarantees freedom of movement, there is no need for any other form of identification.  There are worries that those who do not possess the LASG card could be discriminated against. This is especially disturbing because there are many citizens who do business in Lagos, pay taxes to the Lagos State Government but do not consider themselves to be residents of Lagos. The state government can still achieve its objective by operating within the context of the figures provided by the NPC; this new initiative is a step in the wrong direction.