Don Seeks Review Of Policies To Guarantee Better Living Conditions For Nigerians

By Ayodele Oni

The Vice Chancellor of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo state, Prof. Olugbenga Ige, has  observed that Nigerians are poor due to lack of coordinated policies to guide them.

According to him, there is the need for review of some existing policies to engender better living conditions for Nigerians.

Prof. Ige spoke in Akure, while delivering a lecture on “Better Policies, Better Living Conditions”.

He pointed out that public policies exist in form of law, regulation, procedure, administrative action, incentive, or voluntary practice of governments and their institutions or agencies.

“Since public policies (by their nature) are subject to change, there is the need to look into the possibilities of reviewing some of our existing policies or regulations towards securing better living for the people.

“A review of some of Nigeria’s national development policies is proposed as a body of philosophy to be targeted at providing better living conditions for its citizens such as in the critical sectors.

“Such sectors include education, health, transportation system, agriculture, labour and productivity, wages, youth engagement, national security, sustainable energy, foreign exchange, trade, taxation, environment, and cost of governance.”

He added that the responsibility of public policy formulation rest on public authorities at all levels of governance, including traditional rulers, Councillors, Local Government Chairmen, Members of House of Assembly, the Governor, the National Assembly, and the Presidency or agencies of government.

The university don stressed that public policies were to be legally-formulated framework for government actions towards providing the enabling environment for citizens to have conducive living conditions.

Prof Ige expressed concerns that despite numerous brilliant policies that were initiated by successive governments in the country, Nigerians have not benefitted from those that adequately addressed the challenges in the nation’s education, economic, health and political sectors, even after over two decades into uninterrupted democratic rule.

He linked policy failure in Nigeria to lack of a clearly defined policy framework, political instability, political interference, policy and macro-economic dislocations; lack of continuity by different regimes, both military and civilian.

Others are poor governance leading to abandonment of projects; lack of involvement of beneficiaries/relevant stakeholders in project design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation; and ineffective targeting of real beneficiaries.

Prof. Ige, however, acknowledged the robust policies being initiated by the Ondo Governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, especially on security of lives and property of the people.

The VC said, “In the face of the current security challenges rocking Nigeria, another giant stride has been taken by the amiable Governor of Ondo State, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu, to ensure the safety and security of lives in the State through the government policy that brought about the Ondo State Security Network Agency, the Amotekun Corps. “Going by the successes recorded by this Corps among a host of other important interventions within the last two years, you will agree with me that the initiative has formidably strengthened the state’s security architecture and translated into “better sleep” for the people of the State.” He charged all public