Posted by By Ndubuisi Ugah on
Governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Ibrahim Saminu Turaki, yesterday said the reinstatement of Governor Joshua Dariye of Plateau State and the state House of Assembly, following the lifting of emergency rule imposed on the state, has shored up the image of the country as a nation bent on protecting democratic government.
Governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Ibrahim Saminu Turaki, yesterday said the reinstatement of Governor Joshua Dariye of Plateau State and the state House of Assembly, following the lifting of emergency rule imposed on the state, has shored up the image of the country as a nation bent on protecting democratic government.
He said despite the lifting of the emergency rule, the Northern Governors' Forum would soon meet to review the whole issue and come out with a position.
According to him, "I am the current Chairman of the 19 Northern Governors' Forum and we are meeting on December 1 to 2 for a Unity and Peace Meeting, where we hope to deliberate on the whole issue once again".
He said Dariye is "our colleague and we were happy that he was restored to office", adding that the action of the Federal Government has further given Nigerians cause to believe that they have a government, ready to listen to the yearnings and aspiration of the people.
Turaki, who spoke at Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON), Badagry, Lagos at the end of a two-day seminar on "e-Governance: A Tool for Transparency and Accountability" said it was important that Nigerians are given a sense of belonging in a nation they have laboured very hard to nurture to this stage.
The governor, said with the introduction of e-governance policy in the state, he was able to record tremendous impact by resorting to decentralising his government in order for the masses to participate in the act of governance.
"Our experience was a simple one because we broke the monopoly of knowledge through the decentralisation of power", he said adding that "his administration centred mostly on liberating the common man from his current economic status".
According to him, "Jigawa was the most decentralised state in the country, which is based on the fact that we want to make governance more receptive to the people at the grassroot".
He noted that part of his success story stemmed from the fact that upon assumption of office, he said "he had two choices of either downsizing or retrenching but however, decided to choose an economic policy, which was targeted at making living more worthwhile and interesting for the people".
Noting that the Internet Connecting Technology (ICT) has really enhanced the socio-political and economic fortunes of the state, Turaki stated that through the e-Governance approach to issues, the state government was expecting that "by 2006, the state government intends ensuring that portable water supply in the state is 100 per cent".
Turaki said as a result of its forsight in consolidating the e-Governance policy, the state as a matter of policy accepted over 900 National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members, who were B.Sc mathematics and science-oriented to help train some of its Civil Service personnel, who use e-Governance to carry out their day-to-day activities.
"The state is targeting well over 100, 000 programmers by next year and we are not taking anything for granted, which was why we accepted about 900 NYSC corp members, who are being trained and who if willing would be ready to accept employment offers from the state so long as they are ready to teach our staff certain ways of going about their activities through e-Governance.
"There can never be an e-Governance without the training of Secondary School students as it is expected that about 75 per cent of the students are trained on the policy", he added.