Community participation seminars safely dealing with insecurity from the office of the Presidency and ensuring transparency with local government funds.
This is how the candidates of the NNPP (Rabiu Kwankwaso), the Labor Party (Peter Obi) and the PDP (Atiku Abubakar) will deal with the issues between state governors and the FG on poverty and local governments on their finances.
The candidates revealed this on the Arise TV Town Hall series on Sunday night.
Kwankwaso noted that during his time as governor he worked on schemes for grassroots service delivery. He said,
- “In our plan, we created community engagement that worked on different levels and enlightened the public on what we wanted to say.
- “We had all these communities in all the districts and the resources were channeled from the government to the grassroots.
Peter Obi pointed out that when looking at today’s topic, you have to look at the topic of security, which is the federal government.
- “Most of the things that cause poverty reside in the FG realm and I would take care of that”, he said.
On local government resources, he said he was governor and managed the balance well, stating,
- “Go see how we’ve been able to work with state and local governments to use resources appropriately in the areas of education and primary health care. That’s what we would do.”
He pointed out that the main causes of insecurity are issues that must be resolved by the FG.
- “Carrying out the appropriate measures that would attract investors falls to the FG”, He noticed.
Atiku said that when he took office in 1999 as vice president, what was handed to him was the management of local government.
He added that he instructed the accountant general that all government allocation should go directly to them.
After implementing the policy for 9 months, the governors protested that it was not constitutional, which the FG pointed out. There should have been a joint account at the state level, where local government funds should be transferred.
He said that’s where we have problems, citing that some state governors began to take over from local governments; some said they will build Universities; some said that local governments should contribute to certain projects, “which dried up until local governments ran out of nothing.
- “Most importantly, we need to look at the laws, particularly the constitution, and see how to make them more financially independent and protect their interests.” citing that there are major flaws in our laws when it comes to local government finances.
For the record: Remove Nairametrics reported last week that the federal government blamed state governors for rising poverty levels across the country.
The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clement Agba, shared the blame and also challenged state governors on the need to address poverty among rural dwellers to give life more meaning.
The governors abandoned the villagers:While noting that 72% of Nigeria’s poorest people reside in rural communities, Agba asserted that governors have abandoned critical demographics and prefer to spend state resources in capital cities. He said,
- “The governors are working in their state capitals. And the democracy we preach about is delivering the greatest good to the greatest number of people. And our demographics show that most of our people live in rural areas, but the governors are not working in rural areas.”