Edo govt engages stakeholders, citizens on residency card
EState Government has restated commitment to issuing one million residency cards to Edo citizens before the fourth quarter of 2024, calling for the support and collaboration of all stakeholders towards the realisation of the goal.
The state Head of Service, Anthony Okungbowa, made the call while addressing journalists in Benin City after stakeholders’ engagement on the target realisation and project sustainability. Okungbowa, in a statement by Special Adviser to the Governor on Media Project, Crusoe Osagie, said: “The governor has told us that before this administration exits, he wants to ensure that, at least, one million residency cards are produced. He does not want one million cards produced and issued but that virtually everyone in this state would have been registered and issued Residency Number to identify them, even without the cards.
“Mr. Governor launched the project on November 11 at the 2022 Alaghodaro Summit and from that point, we are supposed to take it further because it was also announced on that day that people could now register for the project.”
He said the project would help collate data for the government’s development plans, adding: “It is going to enable us as a state to plan. You know without data, you are not going to be able to plan effectively for the people of the state.”
“What we have done in the past was to plan but haphazardly; plans that you weren’t sure of because there were not enough data to know who the people you are planning for are, what are they do and what is in these plans for them.
“Today, we had people from the council. We are not going to be going from place to place to register people. We are going to domesticate this within the local governments so that after this initial phase, they will keep it on.”
Special Adviser to Edo State Governor on Strategy, Policy, Planning and Performance Management, Sarah Esangbedo Ajose- Adeogun, said the card would assist in providing access to health programmes aimed at specific groups; provide banking services for the unbanked population; assist in providing the right benefits to the right set of people and institutions such as school, hospital, and pensioners, among others.