Nigeria Governors’ Forum logo
Very often, the focus of Nigerians has always been on the federal government, the other two tiers of government, which are the states and local governments are off the radar when it comes to talking about leadership deficit.
The truth is that some of the states control huge chunk of the monthly allocations without any thing to show for it in terms of development, yet much of the commentary and criticism on poor governance structure hardly captures this reality believing it’s the leviathan federal government that’s responsible solely for delivering democratic deficit .
Aside huge security funds which run into millions, many states have nothing to show for the huge allocations they collect, the EFCC’s investigation on how former states governors stole billions is a further testament of the corruption at the state level, and how the states chief executive officers have failed to use the huge allocations to make a difference in their various states.
NATIONAL WAVES urges the media, non governmental organizations , the civil society and stakeholders to take more interest in doing more oversight on the States to curb profligacy, corruption, misappropriation of public funds and to embark on strong advocacy to force State governors to be more responsible.
As it is, they enjoy unlimited carte blanche to do whatever they like since the civil society and the media hardly apply enough scrutiny in what is going on in the states, only focusing on the federal government.
We urge such advocacy should also beam a searchlight on State Assemblies since they often act as appendages of the executive without applying oversight. Assemblies themselves be forced to be alive to their duties, and the electorates if necessary should be disciplined enough to resort to the power of recall in the case of erring assembly members who are not ready to check the excesses of the governors. The media and other stakeholders should concentrate on political education of the electorates in order to sensitize them into voting out irresponsible representatives during the next round of elections.
Unless the electorates pick up the gauntlet, the governors will continue to deny the people dividend of democracy and the promises they vacuously made during the campaigns.
