‘Govts need ideas, not money to drive change’

A participant at the just concluded national workshop on the development of the local government said in Jos, the Plateau State capital, yesterday that governments at all levels need to deploy new ideas, and not money to drive change.
Mr. Obialor Onwukah, Head, Planning, Research and Strategy at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Area Councils Service Commission, said during an interaction that change will come when Nigerians begin to open their minds for education and interaction as the one organised by Daily Trust and the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), at Kuru, near Jos.
“Money does not solve problems, ideas do,” Mr. Onwukah said, as he hailed President Muhammadu Buhari’s change ideals, though he insisted the ideals can only actualised if governments at all levels act differently, by exploring ideas to deploy them in the management of scarce resources, with the people taken along because policies and actions target them.
“When President Buhari came on board, everybody sat up because they saw a differ body language,” he said, explaining that Nigerians were willing to embrace change if the political leadership at all levels, especially the local government, is ready to give them something different.
He later explained in an interview with Daily Trust that Nigerians need to be shown love by their political leaders, for them not to be suspicious of the system.
“People think power is powerful, but it is powerless without love. Power without love produces the brute, and love without power produces the weakling. So, we have to strike a balance. We must show love, but it must be demonstrated,” Onwukah added.