Fashola inaugurates 57 transitional heads for councils

Gov. Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State has administered the oath of office on 57 Executive Secretaries that would run the affairs of the 20 Local Governments and 37 Local Council Development Areas in the state.

Fashola said that the executive secretaries would run the affairs of their respective councils for the next three months.

The former elected chairmen of the various councils had vacated their offices on Oct .18, 2014, following the expiration of their statutory three-year tenure.

Since then, the council managers had been overseeing the day-to-day activities of the councils.

Fashola said the appointment of the executive secretaries was to ensure there was no vacuum in service delivery at the grassroots.

He said the each of them would oversee the council assigned to him or her with four other officials for a transitional period of three months, after which the state government may renew their tenure or do otherwise.

Fashola said the state had tentatively fixed March for the council elections and that tenure extension would be subject to whether the Independent Electoral Commission would sort out all the necessary issues ahead of the election.

The governor urged the new appointees to justify the confidence reposed in them by serving conscientiously and working with other people to uplift the people at the grassroots.

He charged them to strengthen education at the grassroots and work assiduously to improve primary health care delivery system in their areas.

``We expect the new appointees to focus on their primary responsibilities at the councils. The first duty of any government is to secure lives and properties.

``Also, my mandate to you is to go and intimate all members of your committees that they are part of us, they are Lagosians, and that we must integrate everybody and we must live in peaceful co-existence,`` he said.

Fashola urged people who might have been aggrieved by the selection of the appointees to work with them, pointing out it that it could not have been possible to give responsibilities to every deserving person.

The governor restated the commitment of his administration to service delivery at the grassroots, saying the government sdone a lot to demonstrate this.

Speaking on behalf of the appointees, Mr Omofunmilewa Adejombo thanked the state government for the appointment, and described it as a golden opportunity to serve.

He assured the state government that he and other appointees would do their best to impact positively on the lives of the people at the grassroots.