Youths in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) under the auspices of Abuja Original Inhabitant Youth Empowerment Organisation (AOIYE) have called on the federal government to scrap local government legislative houses, which they described as comatose.
The President of the indigenous organisation, Commandant Isaac David who made this call in Abuja on behalf of the youths, in a press statement, blamed the prolonged and negative relationship between the councils and the FCT administration on the incompetence of the area councils legislators.
According to David, the FCT administration which is being run by bureaucrats who are not close to the grassroots, rely on information and data metrics fed them by the leadership of the area councils who run the councils as a family business without enough consultation with the public.
“The Legislative Houses are comatose and may need to be scrapped as they are not doing their work. Because of their incompetence, the chairmen run the council as if it is their family business.
“Recently, the media has been inundated with commentaries on the management of resettlement issues in the programme of the Land Swap and especially the Centenary City and how the original inhabitants were shortchanged in the process.
“All this adverse publicity would have been avoided if the area councils being managed by the elected representatives of the people did their work in a transparent and accountable manner. There is also not only poor communication between the Councils and the public, but also internal communication among themselves.
“Government communication involves not only sending out persuasive messages to the public, but also explaining working policies, creating awareness of the rights of citizens, and developing mechanisms that enable two-way communication between citizens and the government. The Councils need to understand that government communication is not propaganda,” he said.
Commandant David further said that effective public communication efforts enable citizen participation, but the FCT area councils lack a culture of consultation and participation, exacerbated by low literacy rates and lack of information provision even with the passage of the Freedom of Information Act.
“Without better communication governments risk losing public support for their programmes, policies and development interventions. We note that it is the intention of Government to provide the public with timely, accurate, clear, objective and complete information about its policies, programmes, services and initiatives. The public has a right to such information,” he said.