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| Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode (middle), with Deputy Senate President, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu (left) and Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Lasun Yusuf (right) during the opening of the joint working retreat of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees’ on Review of 1999 Constitution at the Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Friday, July 14, 2017. |
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode on Friday, described the continuous operation of the Federal Land Registry in Lagos as an aberration which the current ongoing Constitutional amendment process must address in line with the principle of fiscal federalism.
Speaking at a joint working retreat of Senate and House
Representatives Committees on the Review of 1999 Constitution held in Lagos,
Governor Ambode also called on the National Assembly to jettison the proposed
Stamp duties Bill currently being considered, which according to him, would
cripple the internally generated revenue due to States in the federation if
allowed to scale through.
While faulting the Federal Land Registry in Lagos which was
established when Lagos was Federal Capital Territory, the Governor said the
continuous operation of the registry was an aberration and it ought to have
been closed and all title therein moved to the Lagos State Land Registry,
urging the federal lawmakers to urgently correct the anomaly.
He also called for the restriction of Land Use Act only to
the Federal Capital Territory on the basis of the fact that land had always
been and should remain a residual matter for the State Houses of Assembly to
legislate upon, hence the need for the Act to become Land Use Law of the
States.
On the Stamp Duties’ Bill, the governor said: “I will also
like to express the imminent dangers inherent in the proposed Stamp Duties Bill,
which no doubt seeks to cripple the internally generated revenue due to States
in the federation in favour of a federal government agency - NIPOST.
“The Bill is presently before the National Assembly and it
is a grave threat to the principles of fiscal federalism and as representatives
of the true beneficiaries of the Act as it presently stands, there is need to
put an urgent and immediate end to its further coordination by the National
Assembly, which also has the noble tradition that once a matter is before the
Court, all activities on the matter would be suspended.”
He said the call became imperative in view of a case
currently pending before the Supreme Court between Lagos State Government’s
Attorney General and Attorney General of the Federation.
While highlighting some of the unhelpful provisions in the
Constitution, Governor Ambode attributed the imbalance in the financial
resources of States and Local Governments to the current unhealthy revenue
sharing formula, which is heavily tilted in favour of the Federal Government,
calling for an urgent review to enable other tiers of government realise their
potentials and accelerate growth and development.
He said: “The current revenue allocation formula by which
the Federal Government takes as much as 52.68% of centrally-collected revenues
in the Federation Account, leaving the States and Local Governments with 26.72%
and 20.60% respectively has created a glaring and unacceptable imbalance in the
financial resources of the three tiers of government.
“The sharing formula should be limited to Federal and State
governments. Since Local Governments are to come under the purview of the
States, allocations to them should be shared to States as they can have as many
Local Governments as they wish. The 774 formula is inequitable.”
Governor Ambode also reinstated his call for special status
to be granted to Lagos in the proposed constitutional amendment being the former
federal capital territory of Nigeria, the economic and commercial nerve centre
of the nation, and taking into cognizance the high population density and
continuous influx of people into the State.
He said such was even more important, considering the fact
that whatever comes to Lagos would be in the overall interest of all Nigerians,
as the state holds the trigger of Nigeria’s growth and development.
Besides, Governor Ambode said it was time for Section 214
(1) of the Constitution to be amended to allow States establish their own
Police Service, as the current arrangement was unhelpful to truly protect the
citizens.
He said over the years, the Federal Government had been
unable to provide resources necessary to pay, equip and train policemen to the
level required by the challenges they face, adding that the situation whereby
only about 300,000 policemen are policing more than 140 million, which is a
ratio of 1 to 467, confirmed the fact that the country was grossly
under-policed.
Ambode in a statement signed by his chief press secretary,
Habib Aruna, said the situation had negatively affected States like Lagos with
huge population saying despite the massive financial support to security
agencies by most States, including Lagos, such was still inadequate, mainly
because State governments have no influence over the number of men recruited
for or deployed to their domains.
Photo: Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode (middle), with Deputy Senate President, Sen. Ike Ekweremadu (left) and Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Lasun Yusuf (right) during the opening of the joint working retreat of the Senate and House of Representatives Committees’ on Review of 1999 Constitution at the Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Friday, July 14, 2017.
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