By Angela Atabo
The Public Administration and Management Development Institute (PAMDI) has pledged to entrench the culture of accountability in Nigerians for sustainable wealth creation and economic transformation of the country.
Dr Elijah Ogboukiri, Director-General,PAMDI said this at the institute’s pre-national conference briefing in Abuja on Thursday.
Ogboukiri said that the two-day national conference with the theme “Accountability and Good Governance as Potent Instruments for Wealth Creation and Economic Transformation in Nigeria’’ would hold from Aug. 11 to Aug.12.
According to him, Nigeria’s development is not properly managed for sustainable wealth creation because of people who cut corners and engage in corruption while citizens sit back and say nothing.
“Our development is not being managed by those who are supposed to be responsible, people who are supposed to build roads don’t do it with integrity and nobody is asking qustions.
“We carefully crafted the theme for the conference because we think that the things that are missing in our society that is taking us backward is accountability and good governance.
“Things are designed to work but we do not allow them work;people do something without consequence management.
“So we are reminding ourselves and the public that accountability not only in government but even in our individual lives and private businesses matter,” he said.
Ogboukiri said that Nigerians ran their personnel businesses without record because they do not feel accountable to anyone and nobody could ask them questions.
“The governors are given as much as N500million for security vote nobody accounts for it,eanwhile, there are people who served the states and are not being paid pension for 30 40,60 months.
“This is because there is no accountability ,the money that is released from the federal purse what do they do with it? Nobody asks questions.
“ I am one of those who believe that we the governed have our own problem.
“Before I will say Buhari did not do well did I ask my governor in my state, what he does, or what he has done with the money he has been getting?
“That is why anybody comes and do whatever they like and they go away and they go to the Senate and sit down that is lack of accountability,” he said.
Ogboukiri said that all the promises made during campaigns were never fulfilled because of lack of good governance and the people bear the brunt of it.
He encouraged Nigerians to learn to demand accountability from their leaders adding that most people do not demand it because they themselves were not clean.
“Good governance cannot come in a country where there is no accountability, no consequence management, anybody can do anything and go.
“So the institute is saying let us highlight and remind ourselves that the only way we can have wealth creation and economic development is through accountability and good governance there is no magic about it.
“Because there is no trust in the society, we are deceiving each other and live in denial and everybody is suffering so the institute is looking at how it can addressed,” he said.
He said that there would be paper presenters that would xtray these points because Nigerians needed to collectively learn to hold their leaders accountable and end the way people engage in corruption with impunity.
He said that airline operators would delay passengers for hours and all the passengers would get would be sorry adding that “if Nigerians begin to demand accountably and take them to court, by the time they have 10 to 20 court cases, they would sit up.
“So the lesson to Nigeria is that we are not developing at the rate we wish to develop because we don’t hold our leaders accountable.
“Come Aug.11and Aug. 12 the national confidence will hold at 9.a.m, at Elyrose Event Place,Ebeano Road by Gudu market Junction Abuja.
“Nigerians will learn about collaborative innovations in governance, challenges in public admiration and how to tackle them, promoting public service, civic leadership among others,’’ he said.
He said that Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo ,former governor of Enugu state would deliver the keynote address, while Prof. Ignatius Onimawo ,Prof Patrick Oviasuyi and Prof. Dahida Philip would also present papers at the conference .(NAN)
