The Lagos State government southwest Nigeria says it will create a technological-driven city with continuous investment in Wi-Fi services particularly at public schools and parks in the state.
The State Commissioner for Science and Technology, Mr Hakeem Fahm made this known at the 2018 Ministerial Press briefing in commemoration of the third year of the state Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode.
Mr Fahm explained that residents of the state have had beautiful experiences at various public parks in the state where they enjoy access to free Wi-Fi services provided by the state government at three selected parks and Gardens with the help of solar-powered panels.
The three public parks include Ndubuisi KANU Park, Ikeja, Muri-Okunola Park, Victoria Island and Johnson Jakande Tinubu Park also at Ikeja.
Fahm said “This Wi-Fi project represents a quick win for our state towards the vision of making it a smart city and provides new ways for the public to enhance social/leisure activities.
“We started this smart city initiative with the idea to use ICT to provide support needed to make the city work better, but we later realised that to attract people and business to our state, we must make sure Lagos is more secure. The security will also be extended to public schools because its important that we protect our children.
“And we will be working with the Ministry of Education to make sure that we leverage technology as part of solution to monitor security and improve the state’s education.
The Commissioner said that some four million residents had registered and had their data captured by the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA).
LASRRA is an agency under the Lagos State Ministry of Science and Technology saddled with the responsibility of registering residents and issuing them residency cards.
According to the commissioner, LASSRA has an important role in providing reliable demographic database to assist in effective planning and allocation of resources in the state.
“LASRRA is committed to building a state that is robust and will continue to plan and deploy economic resources across the state. Society has become more mobile and the information held electronically about persons and services by government agencies and other bodies have substantially increased.
“There is a growing need to integrate the residents of Lagos State into government initiative to enable the services provided by government to be fully utilised and also provide an accurate picture for government policy and planning,” he said.
The commissioner said that special registration was carried out by mobile teams in some locations across the state during the period under review.
According to him, mobile teams are in place to register people in large business entities, factories, markets, churches, mosques, large housing estates and where people may not be able to reach the registration stations readily.
He emphasised that the state government had taken a bold step on data protection law, giving assurance that data collected by the government are safe.
Fahm stated that arrangements are in top gear to deploy additional 10,000 High Definition (HD) CCTV cameras across the state as part of the comprehensive Smart City Programme designed to provide a 24-hour driven economy.
He said the smart city initiative, which is on course, is intended to allow the people and companies operate in a safe and secure environment, thereby creating more jobs and increasing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), of the state.
Giving details, the Commissioner said the focus of the smart city programme basically includes provision of security and surveillance, implementation of a metro fibre network and e-Governance, adding that apart from HD cameras with gantries deployed in the first phase, other scope of the project involves integration of the deployed cameras with Centralised Emergency Command and Control Centre (CCC), provision of road signature structure and street lights across the state.
“In the second phase of the project, we will be deploying 10,000 HD cameras, world class e-Government solution and data centre solution, one key alarm, metro fibre network to serve as backbone for communication and unified communications with smart phones for first respondent agencies such as police, fire service, Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), Lagos State Ambulance Service (LASAMBUS), Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO), among others,” commissioner said.
He said the initiative would address security, transportation and infrastructure in a sustainable manner, adding that thousands of surveillance CCTV cameras would eventually be deployed across the length and breadth of the state.
