Lagos Bans Illegal LG Taskforce

The Lagos State Government has banned all local governments from setting up illegal environmental and traffic taskforce that extort money from members of the public.

Several local governments across the state have established parallel taskforce and traffic officials who arrest motorists and extort between N20,000 and N30,000 from them for allegedly breaking traffic law.

Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Ademorin Kure at a ministerial news conference on Thursday said government has outlawed all forms of taskforce or traffic officials being set up by councils, desctibing them as illegal.

'On illegal traffic officers, we have held meeting with our local government chairmen and the council chairmen have addressed the press at different times and saying they don't know these people.

'A few weeks ago, we issued another letter to our local governments telling them that wherever we find this happening, we are going to hold the council chairmen responsible. We have equally informed the Lagos State Taskforce that they should make sure that wherever they find these illegal traffic officers, they should arrest them and prosecute them,' he said.

On illegal collection of levies by council officials, the commissioner said government had  issued several directives to the councils that local governments found wanting would be sanctioned.

'Whenever we receive complaints from any quarters, we promptly act and we direct our councils to make sure that whatever they are collecting is within the approved rate by the Lagos State House of Assembly. The fact that the law is there does not mean that we will not find people who will want to breach the law, particularly the landowners who sometimes go to government schemes to sell land to the people.

'We have constantly held meetings with them through their monarchs for them to desist from such act and that if they are caught, they will be criminally prosecuted,' he stated.

On boundary matters, the commissioner said Lagos and Ogun States had been collaborating on the retracing exercise of Section 'C' which starts from Omu Creek and ends at Ode-Omi Border town towards the Atlantic Ocean.

He added that all fieldwork in respect of this section had been completed while necessary documents concerning the claims of the two states had been forwarded to the National Boundary Commission (NBC).

'However, Lagos and Ogun states are awaiting the decision of the National Boundary Commission on where the imaginary line of demarcation exist and preparations are in top gear to erect a signpost  in the completed Sections 'A' and 'B,' he explained.