A committee appointed by the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu to oversee and provide direction for the implementation of the Lagos Resilience Strategy, LRS, was recently inaugurated at Protea Hotel, Alausa Ikeja ahead of the launch of the LRS document.
Lagos Resilience Steering Committee is a high-level, a multi-sector committee comprising of Permanent Secretaries, representative of UNILAG and LASU, as well as Civil Society Organisations appointed by the Governor to work with the Lagos Resilience Office in collectively salvaging Lagos from acute shocks or chronic stresses.
Special Adviser on Economic Planning and Budget, Mr. Adebayo Sodade, while representing the Governor at the inauguration ceremony, pleaded with the committee members to bring their expertise to bear on the task ahead of them.
Sanwo-Olu acknowledged that the implementation of the strategy document is a herculean task before the Committee and the LASRO Team, expressing the hope that members will continuously provide critical resources, expertise and formal decision-making to further enhance the productivity and effective performance of the Lagos Resilience Office.
“I should also add that today’s event speaks volume to the readiness of the present administration to bequeath a legacy of good governance to residents of the State and also guarantee the wellbeing of all inhabitants of this Centre of Excellence”, Governor Sanwo-Olu stated.
The Chairman of the Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Budget, Hon. Gbolahan Yishawu said that the overall idea behind the resilience strategy is the compilation of relevant data that would aid proper planning for the benefit of residents in the State.
According to him, the effect of having a resilience plan in place to have data, facts and statistics that will aid the government in providing the needs of the populace.
The Chief Resilience Officer, LASRO, Arc. Gbolahan Oki said that the involvement of the headship of the various MDAs of the State Government in the resilience strategy would help the institutions make futuristic plans, projections, and programmes.
In his contribution, the Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos, UNILAG, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, described the decision of the State government to establish a resilience office as very proactive, stressing that it is only a forward-thinking government that could be talking about resilience in this present time.
Ogundipe said, “Lagos is already resilient. The way and manner the State government handled and contained the outbreak of Ebola some years back is a testimony to this fact. The establishment of a resilience office shows the readiness of the State government to address issues like climate change and other global phenomena”.
