President Goodluck Jonathan has been condemned by Governor Babatunde Fashola for assigning only a Minister of State slot to Lagos State.
Fashola, while answering questions at a programme to commemorate his administration’s 2500 days in office, said the state deserved a full ministerial slot from the President having polled a substantial 1.7 million votes from the state when he won the presidential election in 2011.
The governor explained that Mr. Segun Aganga, the Minister of Trade and Investment, who was appointed a representative of Lagos in the Federal Executive Cabinet, was not an indigene of the state.
“Under this presidency, Lagos just had a minister a few weeks ago with the appointment of Sen. Musiliu Obanikoro as Minister of State for Defence. The Minister of Trade and Investment does not represent Lagos. I think it is Section 147 of the Constitution that provides that every state is represented by a minister indigenous to that state,” Fashola said.
“Aganga is from somewhere in Edo, he is not representing us although he has supported our initiatives well, such as our Free Trade Zone project. But more importantly, the President won an election here with about 1.7million votes and all the states got ministers except us, until a few weeks ago. That’s the reward for our votes and as if that was not bad enough, what we got was a junior minister,” he explained.