By Okon Okon
Mrs Gloria Akobundu, National Coordinator, African Union Development Agency/New Partnership for Africa’s Development (AUDA/NEPAD), has advocated the prioritisation of governance at the grassroots towards achieving objectives of democracy.
Akobundu made the call on Thursday in Abuja, when members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) political group known as ‘National Integrity Movement (ANIM)’, visited her.
According to her, localising governance at the grassroots could go a long way to curb numerous challenges ranging from insecurity, unemployment and development, among others.
“This is what we are doing in AUDA/NEPAD governance. We try to localise governance, take it to the grassroots.
“Like we are going for election, some of us don’t vote in the cities, you go back to your local government, that is where you are coming from.
“So, if you take the three tiers of government and put it to four or five tiers of governance, you will see that you have addressed numerous challenges in area of insecurity, development, employment
“And that is one of the challenges our nation is facing, even in Africa, our continent,” she said.
Akobundu said that the country and some of those at the helm of affairs were not getting it right in some cases because decisions affecting the citizens were taken at the city
She added, ”governance begins from the grassroots level, which includes the home and family.
“Then you extend it to community meetings, to wards, local governments, those are tiers of governance, once it starts coming from there, then rest assured that the top will grow.”
Akobundu added that AUDA/NEPAD was trying to affect the grassroots region by adopting the grassroots-governance-approach to achieve its key mandates.
This, according to her, is to alleviate poverty, having established the desk officers across the 774 local governments of the federation.
Earlier in his remarks, Mr Abubakar Sadiq, National Leader of ANIM, said the visit was to appreciate her for the numerous programmes she had initiated at the grassroots.
He said that ANIM was a group borne out of genuine passion by critical stakeholders of the APC, who believe in the party and the credibility of all the candidates for the 2023 General Elections.
Akobundu added that ANIM as a group believed in the integrity of people who could deliver on the dividends of governance.
Contributing also, Dr Yetunde Adeniyi, Deputy National Leader, Southern region, expressed gratitude to Akobundu for standing even in the trial time of COVID-19 period to reach out to people.
Similarly, Dr Umar Yakasai, ANIM North-West Representative said Akobundu had also played vital roles in the APC government.
“As members of ANIM, it is our responsibility to interact with leaders of the various agencies to get to know more and be deeper in the knowledge and achievements of our agencies,” he said.
The highlight was the conferment on the AUDA/NEPAD`s boss as a National Patron of ANIM.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the visit drew representatives and members of ANIM from all the six geopolitical zones of the country. (NAN)
