LG Poll: George-Olumoroti Olusola Canvasses for ACN, Says PDP is Visionless

All over the world, the local government system is the tier of government that is closest to the people. Or, so it is believed. It is designed to bring good governance and service delivery to rural and less privileged communities. It is also an avenue for deepening democracy and decentralising power through greater citizen participation in electoral processes and decision-making. It also serves as an arena for political incubation and conduit to engender development at the grass-roots level.Under the visionless and corrupt leadership of PDP government in Nigeria and Kogi State in particular; the local government system is unarguably the most corrupt level of government and the reasons for its establishment have been largely compromised thereby making the people at the grassroots not feeling the impact of the real dividends of democracy; the elected and appointed PDP officials feels they are not accountable to the populace because they continuously rape democracy by rigging elections at the local government level.

Lately our Governor illegally appointed what he called Liason Officer (LO) 1&2 in charge of LG administration in Kogi State despite a valid restraining order from a competent court of law; that phase in the life of our people was the most wasteful as the LOs became proponents of payment of quarter-salaries to workers with many months arrears of unpaid salaries to the Council workers, these 9 months also experienced drought of any visible infrastructural or community development efforts; strangely when the LOs were unceremoniously dismissed from office the DLGs that took over were able to pay full salaries and do more within a month from the same allocation that wasn’t enough during the LOs unfortunate period in office; the LOs were pre-occupied with sharing the allocation accruing to the LGs and care less about bringing development closer to the people.Without fear of contradiction, I make bold to say that today the worst ACN governor is performing better than the best PDP governor; so the best PDP-led administration in the LG will still be a far-cry from bringing succour to the people, it will only continue to breed poverty, squalor, thugery and institutionalise corruption; local governments in Kogi State is increasingly becoming cesspools of corruption and a breeding ground for fraudsters where individuals constitute themselves to “LEADERS” standing-by to share our collective resources. There is nowhere this “egregious graft” is more evident as in the management of the huge monthly allocations from the Federation Account Allocation Committee to the local government areas in the country. And the PDP leadership is more concerned to the criminal acquisition of illegal wealth to the detriment of the populace by sharing the huge allocations accruable to the councils every month at a time when statutory functions such as the repair of local feeder roads, streets, construction of public health centres, maintenance of local dispensaries, parks, gardens as well as markets and abattoirs, which the local government could easily perform, are essentially left unattended to.

Our State and LG administration has been under the misrule of PDP since 2003 and I can tell you confidently that it has been 10 years of waste as Kogi State currently ranked 35th lowest developed State but ranked 19th on monthly federal allocation scale(what has been happening to the monies), Kogi State ranked 34th in WAEC/NECO ranking (because our educational system have collapsed), Kogi State boast of the worst road networks in the country; and clean drinking water has become alien to our people; our hospitals are less than mere consulting clinics. Most embarrassingly, Lokoja looks like a glorified LG headquarter because it is not comparable to any State capital in Nigeria (Lokoja is dirty, unorganized and without any visible infrastructural development or plan for the past 10 years).

The time for change is now, the opportunity to take our fate in our hands has come; vote wisely, vote for ACN for good governance, and to build the capacity of local government to deliver effective services and be accountable to the electorate. ACN demands for account of stewardship from the their elected officials; ACN leadership do not constitute themselves into “SHARING LEADERS” instead it allows free hand to perform and challenge them when they are not living up to expectation. We can no longer afford to live with the hopelessness that PDP has wrought on us all these years; we need to work together to bring about the desired positive change and that can only be achieved with your support.