Ambode to senate: Lagos need special status

Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode yesterday urged the Senate to reconsider the bill seeking one per cent allocation to Lagos from the revenue accruable to the Federal Government, saying it will ensure economic prosperity not just for Lagosians but all Nigerians.

The governor spoke at the Lagos House, Ikeja, when he received members of the Senate Committee on Marine Transport, who are in the state to perform oversight functions.

He said Lagos being a cosmopolitan city and the economic capital of Nigeria must be assisted by the Federal Government to address its infrastructure challenges.

"By December 12, it will be 25 years that the capital of Nigeria was moved from Lagos to Abuja. So, 25 years after, this is where we are.

"I will like to use this platform firstly to thank the Senate president and deputy Senate president for allowing us to table our one per cent special status because we have been struggling to put that up in the Seventh Assembly, it was not done.

"We want you to try and help us to have a re-look, a re-think and then think more of Nigeria in the bill rather than of Lagos because that is what that one per cent assistance will address and then tends to create the image of the kind of commercial capital we want Lagos to be."

Ambode described the visit by the committee as apt and timely, as it came a few days after he had discussions in Denmark about the development of $2.6 billion Badagry Deep Sea Port, aside the Lekki Port.

Chairman of the Senate committee Sani Yerima said the committee was in Lagos to perform oversight function on federal institutions.

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