|
Determined to rest the controversy over the viability of the Development
Centre Programme of Governor Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State, Association
of Local Government Chairmen (ALGON) in the State rose in full support for
the policy and actions of government already considered as the surest avenue
to ensure even development for some long blighted areas.
In this detailed address given by its State Chairman, Hon. Chidi Nwatu,
during a courtesy visit to the governor in Government House, Enugu,
ALGON insists
that it was a well-thought out programme which provided easy reach
for locality administration and development and also ensured a broad
coverage of the entire
state, each area sitting within three-kilometre radius of a Development
Centre Headquarters.
Excerpts:
Overwhelmed by joy and propelled by your inspiration, we the executive and
members of the Association of Local Government Chairmen of Nigeria, ALGON,
Enugu State Chapter, thank you so immensely for responding to our request
to meet, formally, with Your Excellency, once again.
We had sought this meeting long before now and had persisted in the
effort to have this day, because we found it increasingly necessary
to interact
and meet minds, especially now that our professional season – an election
year – is at hand.
Although this interaction is coming a bit later than we wanted, we had appreciated
the situation of His Excellency in daily checks on the projects of infrastructure
development in which we have all excelled together and for which the political
structure of Governor Chimaroke Nnamani has etched its values in the minds
of Enugu people.
Of course, we follow in details, His Excellency’s personal supervision
of the monumental projects of Enugu State Government, a task said to
be undertaken every morning, every evening, every day; including on
the spot
project assessment
and evaluation, which are followed by new decisions and further ranges
of actions. Needless to say that as the man soweth, so he reapeth,
as Enugu State has now been declared as the signpost of democracy,
which
is already
attested to and confirmed, in the all-high, seasonal refrain, Enugu
is working,
an affirmation of the President of the Federal Republic.
Your Excellency, we identify with these gestures in development efforts and
the eventual diffusion of such policies and actions of government as they
pass through us, the Local Council Authorities to the generality of the people
as indicating that, collectively and individually, we have discharged and
have continued to discharge our obligations, to the people of Enugu State
.
In like manner, Your Excellency, we have come here today to celebrate our
inspiration by your good self and office, to pursue,
1. that which would provide the enabling environment for the people of Enugu
State to be prepared to compete effectively with other Nigerians, and indeed
other citizens of the globalising world;
2. that which would ensure the opening up of hitherto obscure areas of Enugu
State ;
3. that which would bring forth the birth, building and harvesting of all
talents of our citizens, as good Nigerians; and
4. that which shall cause a perpetual reckoning of the imprint of the ebeano
values on the political, cultural and economic landscape of Enugu State and
beyond.
Today is an opportunity for us to declare that ours were opportunities to
work, backed by the fine implements to put to realities the dreams of our
people to be governed and mobilised with judicious application of the resources
available to the government and people of Enugu State , Nigeria .
Your Excellency, Sir, it is not surprising to us that in your tenure and
under the most turbulent season of political skirmishes, it was a wonder
to many that your government achieved this extent of spread of democracy
dividends of which every nook and cranny of the State stands to chant, in
adoration, the effectiveness of local government administration in Enugu
State.
Many had wondered how it all came, even in the face of deliberate efforts
of revisionists and relegated old school political captains who had little
or no idea how an otherwise blighted and abandoned people could so swiftly
rediscover themselves, fall in line behind a well disposed but extremely
focused leader and turn the table against backwardness.
On our part, we are not surprised. We, as Chairmen and officials, of Local
Government Areas, who form the channel in dispensing values to the grassroots,
have an idea how it all happened. To this effect, we stand here today to
say it was no magic as Your Excellency, among other actions in development,
always ensured:
1. prompt release of statutory allocations to every local government authority,
as at when due, and in full observance of the rules guiding the joint state-local
government account;
2. ceaseless pressure on the various local government councils to undertake
as a matter of urgency the settlement of the obnoxious pre-May 29, 1999,
arrears of salaries, allowances and benefits owed staff of local councils;
3. partnering with local government areas to develop strategies to deliver
dividends of democracy to the grassroots areas;
4. insisting in local council authorities developing people-oriented projects,
of which over 57 cottage hospitals, 121-community rural electrification,
47-kilometre water-pipe reticulation, 23 boreholes, etc, have been completed
in various areas of Enugu State;
5. evolving and guiding local council authorities to pursue locality dictated
development projects, of which the peculiarity principles played out so well
that grassroots people found it most convenient and appealing to determine
what manner of project suited their areas, their peoples and their temperaments;
6. introducing the first ever stakeholder influence in decision making process
in the locality areas, which in turn gave our people the highest ever level
of confidence any State Government ever enjoyed in Enugu State; and,
7. developing the highly laudable administrative machinery which ensured
the irreversible diffusion of amenities through the Development Centres organised
in Enugu State .
Indeed, Your Excellency, for reasons of its importance, permit me to delve
further into the Development Centre Programme of the Enugu State Government,
in which, we, as Chairmen, Councillors and Officials of grassroots administration
can espouse far more knowledge and experience than anybody, with due respect,
including His Excellency, Governor Chimaroke Nnamani, of Enugu State.
By your good calculations in development politics, Your Excellency, perhaps,
had correctly assessed the performance of the 17 local government structure
in the State and concluded in retrospect, that much as so much of resources
had been pumped into the system, physical and human development had been
limited to such specific towns or villages which had the fortune of hosting
the Local Government Headquarters. In other words, as funds were released
to these local government areas, attention in governance, had, in most cases,
been limited to these lucky communities, without as much a thought for the
99 per cent of the people inhabiting or passing through the other unlucky
communities around.
In that regard, all amenities - planned and executed - were concentrated
in these areas, leaving the others completely blighted, squalid and in perpetual
recession. I will mention specific cases in some areas:
1. Prior to the introduction of the Development Centre Programme, it
was rare to site any government hospital (usually general hospitals),
health
Centres, health outposts, etc, outside the Local Government Headquarters.
Today, as the Development Centre Programme came into being, the emergence
of an average of three centres of development in each of the 17 local
government areas, with the corresponding attention paid the people’s peculiar
interests – healthcare inclusive - the time lag between need
for health care and actual attention has been so drastically reduced.
So,
as we completed
our competitive race to erect health centres in each of these Development
Centres, every part of Enugu State arrived the immediate, but effortless,
reach or contact with such facilities in place.
2. Previously, locality security questions were speciously attended to by
far flung local government headquarters, which, side-by-side, with the Divisional
Police Authorities, had neither immediate access to, nor good knowledge of,
the local people which their actions were to bring succour to. Today, Your
Excellency, by the advent of the Development Centre Programme of Government
of Enugu State, dutiful officials, usually in close contact with the people,
easily rise to such challenges that may be posed from time to time. In fact,
with every sense of modesty, we can still recall the collective efforts of
ALGON members, which resulted in the donation of 16 hi-lux jeeps to the police
to ensure proper policing of our locality areas. Since then, we have reaped
from this effective design of the Chairmen to have these patrol vans kept
for specific trouble areas and junction towns in our innermost localities.
Related to this, Your Excellency, was our close involvement in developing,
execution and monitoring of the Neighbourhood Security project of State Government,
in ways that would have been impossible without the nearness of the Development
Centres. For once, but gainfully, Sir, locality administration has been moved
beyond the huge Local Government Buildings in the old Local Government Headquarters,
right down to the inner places previously devoid of government presence.
3. In the same vein, the evolution of the Development Centre Programme
made it possible for local government administration to provide the
path for the
high level diffusion of water projects, electricity, rural roads, and
other poverty alleviation programmes of Your Excellency, which stand,
today as
unparalleled in the annals of State development feats. As your Excellency
knows, one of us, Hon. Ignatius Ishienyi of Igbo Etiti Development
Centre, emerged Nigeria’s most outstanding local authority chairman,
and we must admit that it was all on account of imbibing the ebeano
values
of diffuse
development as the best channels of liberalising economic opportunities.
Translated, this means the gospel of poverty reduction as espoused
and practised by the ebeano political clan.
4. Your Excellency, you may not have come in contact with the specific reality
of the goodness of the Development Centre Programme, as an administrative
measure which sacked, for all seasons, the disenfranchisement of our inner-village
folk, until you hear some of the testimonies of erstwhile forgotten peoples
and places. For example, prior to the evolution of this programme, it was
fortuitous for the barefooted school boy or girl in far flung Nze hamlet
to travel the 65 kilometres from his/her locality to Udi Local Government
Headquarters where he had to await the chance of picking a mere local government
identification note to write the Federal Common entrance examination or the
like. In most cases, the effort to do this had always resulted in repeated,
frustrating and fruitless, yet, costly trips, of which such child and parents
had to forego their chances of having this young citizen seek a role and
recognition in his country. But, today, with Ezedike Development Centre,
which serves as a relay station for the age-old Udi LG, the chances of this
child has gone beyond a possibility to a certainty. The same can be said
to be the case in every deep rural area of Enugu State .
Your Excellency, Sir, he who feels it knows it. We are the administrators
in the grassroots. We feel the impact of your administration. We know the
inroad the government of Enugu State has made in rural/grassroots development
since 1999 and we are happy and proud to report that things are moving as
firmly and smoothly as you planned them.
But we have to quickly add that, as ever, we are prepared to partner with
State government to extend the values of Ebeano, knowing that having done
so much, having so strongly registered development efforts and results in
every part of Enugu State, the best chance which has been chosen by the people
of Enugu State remains the Ebeano, as both the principles and practices in
programmes for countering poverty.
We also take note of the recent security arrangements of Your Excellency,
for which more new vehicles and communication equipment were purchased for
the Nigeria Police to contend with crime and criminals. We are grateful for
the two Hi-lux vehicles donated to the Agbani Police Division, which, are
to be deployed in service to the new university community emerging as the
Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) took its permanent
abode in the nearby Ebeano City.
It is our resolve today, and we wish to convey it, that we stand as firm
and unshakable partners of the Government of His Excellency, Chimaroke Nnamani,
whose foresight, focus and firmness, have yielded the people of Enugu State
the beautiful image of the best governed state in Nigeria.
Against this background, we now make bold to state in finality that such
ability for political organisation, cohesion and impressive results in development,
remain the anchors of our unshakable unity and thrust in all our endeavours.
To God Be the Glory.
Delivered during a courtesy visit of ALGON, Enugu State Chapter to Governor
Chimaroke Nnamani, September 26, 2006; Lion Building, Government House, Enugu.
|