By our Reporter
Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, Lagos Deputy Governor, revealed that around 6,000 people arrive in Lagos daily, with nearly 3,000 of them settling in the city without providing any known addresses.
He highlighted that Lagos, with an estimated population of 27 million, is managing on a budget of N2.2 trillion, noting that the budget of New York State in the United State with 19.5 million population was $237 billion as of 2023.
Speaking at an event, he said: “The budget of Lagos 2024 is N2.3 trillion. Now the next one is Rivers, N700 billion, look at the gap. But that N2.2 trillion is $1.3 billion. The budget of New York State with population of 19.2 million as at 2023, the budget is $237 billion.
The budget of Lagos with 27 million people and counting because every day over 6000 will come in and only about 3000 will go back with no known address. So it keeps increasing because people want to live a good life. You can’t blame them for that. But our budget is $1.3 billion, the highest in the country.
The next one is less than half, it is about one-third which is Rivers but the budget of the State of New York with less population (19 million) is $237 billion.So a lot of times you receive text. I keep receiving text, I need help, I am a widow. So I was now wondering how many widows we have in Lagos.What did we find out? There are widows but the husbands are still living. As at the last count when I said enough, we had 138,000 women. The high percentage, the men just leave. So a man has a wife with three children, four children, five children and you just leave. So those are the problems in this country. If we don’t solve the family unit, nothing will work.
Out of that $237 billion, $5.5 billion is just to make sure that the children don’t get abandoned. If you can’t take care of those children, they will take them from you.”