[If you are new to this Blog, welcome. Comments here are reproduced from under the essay, President Jonathan and reading habit Iweala Dowden etcetera. This is done here with certain subjects so that readers do not miss certain comments as often happens when readers read essays and skip the comments, e.g. the lenghty discussions on Islamic Banking: Islamic Sharia compliant banking. TOLA]
I agree with Mr Ayodele that Jonathan is wasting time on irrelevant issues. But I disagree that federal govt. should set up any monitoring agency because it will seem militaristic in a civilian democratic regime. Moreover, we already have so many monitoring agencies in place. If Jonathan decides to use the existing EFCC and the other one to fight corruption, all other agencies will wake up.
In Nigeria, Civil servants hardly work two hours in a normal day’s work. It is in Nigeria that Civil servants will not attend to citizens who come to willingly pay for services in govt office. In the US, students in high school and colleges work to contribute to national economic growth. Many elders above 60yrs work to contribute as well. In Nigeria, able-bodied young men and women just roam about jobless everyday. Hardly will anyone above 50 yrs be seen actively working. How can economy where majority refuse to work, thrive?
Personally, I had bought seedlings from IITA Ibadan to cultivate a small plantation successfully. Such can be replicated by just motivating the citizenry through govt policies in decent and civilized manner. So many of us have land that we bought without utilizing them for anything. Whereas, merely planting corn or tomatoes on our empty plots of land can go a long way to change the agricultural reliance on other economies. IITA is still there with varieties of seedlings at cheaper rates. The FIIRO in Oshodi is still there with facilities to assist small scale investors.
The problem, however, is that budding investors and farmers are frustrated by the ubiquitous civil servants and the influx of superior products from other economies.
In a nutshell, in my own opinion, we shall keep saying the same things repeatedly except we force our govt to tackle corruption. Someone has suggested a nationalistic network of protests to force Jonathan to accountability. It is high time we start the protest in earnest before it is too late.
-Adetoye
RE: Segun Ayodele
Seems to me the gentleman has forgotten there is an extant Nigerian constitution.
Witness this:
‘A powerful monitoring agency should be provided to monitor the performance of every local government. The agencies should report directly to the presidency with serious consequences for non performance. The same should be applicable to the state government’
FEMI