Group to hold political leaders accountable to people

A youth group, National Youth Alliance for Socio-economic Development (NYASED) has expressed its determination to hold political leaders accountable to the people in Nasarawa State toward enhancing the socio-economic development of the communities.

The convener of the group, Mr. Gaza Mark Auta, who addressed a press conference in New Karu, Karu Local Government of the state to mark Democracy Day, said the group would follow up on budgetary allocations and ensure resources are applied where and when necessary for the overall benefit of the people.

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“NYASED intends to follow up on budgetary allocations given to all the representatives of the communities. We will fill up the missing link and wake them up by following up on projects.

“Nigeria has very weak institutions but NYASED has come up with a paper to strengthen the institutions because this has had a ripple effect in Africa.

“Instead of strong institutions, we have strong individuals. The reverse is supposed to be the case, where you have weak individuals but strong institutions to protect them,” he said.

He said the group has come up with a strategic paper to strengthen weak institutions with a view to entrenching democracy and spurring sustainable development.

He also noted that the recruitment process for leaders was flawed hence the youth group has decided to intervene.

Auta noted that to address the dearth of quality leadership in the political sphere, NYASED would organise seminars incumbent leaders would be invited, while debates would be organized for aspirants in the state.

He explained that the seminars are aimed at equipping leaders with the requisite skills for good governance and quality service delivery.

“NYASED plans to organise debates for most of the aspirants that will be vying for elective positions in Karu local government and Nasarawa State at large.

“This will be a litmus test for us to know the substance that the supposed leaders are made of. If for instance, a leader does not have a blueprint, in Nigeria, it is very easy for the leader to come around and throw around some money and then he is voted into power.

“That is because we do not have a system to check if these leaders are what we want. So the debates and interactions that we are going to have with these aspirants will help in giving us, the constituents and the electorate, an idea of who they are voting for. If this doesn’t give us the immediate solution we want, at least it must have challenged the problem,” he said.