Lagos State government has warned the electorates not to misuse their voter cards in the forthcoming Local Government elections coming up in the state, describing the card as their weapons of fighting backwardness.
The Special Adviser to the State Governor on Civic Engagement, Mr Kehinde Joseph, gave the warning on Wednesday while speaking at the ongoing Ministerial Press briefing, emphasising the importance of having voter’s cards as a compulsory requirement for all adults to vote in the election
Joseph urged all Lagosians to change their apathy towards participating in elections, saying their participation in the forthcoming local government elections holding in July would positively influence the outcome because they had the power, through their individual votes, to determine the eventual winners across the state.
Commenting on public protests in spite of the existence of Civic Engagement Office, Joseph lamented that many of the protests were being staged due to lack of understanding of the various channels of engagement with government.
“Some protests are unnecessary as the issues involved can easily be resolved by establishing a communication line with the concerned authority through various platforms while some are issues that have nothing to do with the state government,” he said.
According to him, his office (Civic Engagement) engages in dispute resolution and conflict management to encourage the development and maintenance of productive relations among individuals, groups and communities, disclosing that 40 disputes and issues that could have resulted into crises were handled and resolved amicably by his office in the last one year.
These, according to him, include, peaceful resolution of the dispute between the Motorcycle Operators Association of Lagos State (MOALS) and the Motorcycle Transport Union of Nigeria (MTUN) Ojodu Zone, the rift among Students’ Joint Campus Committee of the Lagos State Tertiary Institutions, among others.
The Governor’s aide explained that the present administration was currently looking into the challenges facing communities especially in the area of infrastructures such as roads, street lights, health facilities, schools and flood control, stressing that complaints from the communities had been brought to the attention of appropriate ministries and were currently receiving attention.
and then