The Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola, announced on Tuesday that his administration will introduce a residents’ identity card scheme.
Mr. Fashola disclosed this while presenting the 2010 budget to the State House of Assembly in Alausa, Ikeja.
According to him, the scheme will increase the state government’s capacity to plan the delivery of social amenities to the people.
He said: “We have now reached a stage where it is no longer avoidable to ask: ‘How many people can Lagos State meaningfully employ and sustain?'”
The governor, who addressed the issue of migration, added: “The state is being faced with a daily influx of people from all over the country who want to take advantage of the opportunities of an economy that works.
“But, the reality is that persistent uncontrolled population growth worsens the problem of poverty and negates the government’s efforts to improve the quality of life for majority of the people.”
Mr. Fashola said one of the areas where such an awareness campaign will focus on in the 2010 budget will be the deliberate population control as a necessary mechanism for poverty alleviation.
“Unless individuals exercise self-restraint by properly spacing and limiting the number of their offspring, unduly large families become an unbearable burden on the entire society. This is an issue that we must frontally confront and which I will continue to address in greater detail in the days ahead,” the governor said.
Mr. Fashola also implored Lagosians to develop a change in attitude towards infrastructure development by regarding public property as theirs for the 2010 proposed budget and mega city project to be realised.
He said: “A necessary condition for achieving the objectives of this budget and indeed that of Lagos State as a Model Mega City is the renewal of the soft infrastructure of the hearts and minds of our people.”