Former Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has said that mobilising the Nigerian citizens for productivity is the first in the line of priorities that must border all stakeholders before following up on campaign promises.
Aregbesola, who spoke in Abuja at a one-day dialogue organised by the NPO Reports, with the theme: 2023 and Beyond: Tracking Campaign Promises for Good Governance, said Nigerians must set priorities right adding that no matter how much of campaign promises that are tracked, there are issues such as poor productivity that are slowing the country down.
“I realised that there is this knowledge gap about governance and I don’t want to sound self-righteous. It is unfortunate that there is this huge confusion and there should not be confusion because there are templates somebody worked on.
“Nigeria is not the only federation in the world. Australia is a federation for goodness’ sake, India is a federation, America is a federation and many others. So, how do federations run? People just talk and talk and talk, there is no 3rd tier government in a federation. They are only two tiers of government in a federation.
“Germany is a federation, so how does the federation run? Why must our own be different? Nobody cares. They say why is the local government not working but why is it working in India? Why are they working in Germany? Why are they working in America? Why are they not working here? They are not working here because they are not self-sustaining.
“Why is Nigeria still having challenges is because we have no revenue, a country of 200 million people, less than five percent are working and earning and you think there will be progress? no! 200 million people and less than 10 percent are working and productive and you’re hoping for development?” Aregbesola said.
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“When I was governor in Osun, I created a government department called the Bureau of Social Services with the acronym BOSS, to track government programmes, projects and interventions. Also, I had a Policy and Economic Team (PET) to track projects and initiatives of my office. I also engaged private social, political and economic consultants to do the performance monitoring and perception review. However, beyond the tracking of these project, what we should be doing is tracking of productivity.
“I heard some speakers talking about tracking the productivity of all tiers of government, particularly, the local government and I ask myself, is local council a tier of government in a federation? Examples abound world over of countries that practice federal system like ours. In Australia, Germany, the United States and many others, there are only two tiers in a federal system which is usually the central and the regional governments. The local government is not one of them. Unfortunately, here, local governments, though closest to the people, but are dependent on the federation account for funding. But they should really have no business waiting from handouts every month from the central government.
“The Local Councils must generate revenue to drive development at that level. No local government will be accountable with handouts. Charity doesn’t make people responsible. Aregbesola said the people of every locality must fund their local government saying this would make them excert responsibility and accountability from that government.
“People can hardly hold a government accountable, whose funding they are not responsible for. This applies to state governments too,” Aregbesola stated