Abuja – The Adamawa State Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Ahmad Sajoh, has said that the state government is driving development using the traditional institution structure.
Sajoh said this at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum on Wednesday in Abuja.
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“For too long, those of us that are in government have tolerated some level of disconnect between those of us that are in the cities governing and those of us at the grassroots whom we are suppose to govern.
“We assume a lot; we assume that we know what they want; we know what is good for them; there is a lot of assumption in the governance process.
“I decided that as the Commissioner for Information, I will not rely on those assumptions; let me go out and meet them.
“Now we started driving development using the traditional institution.’’
He said that the government had embarked on an advocacy visit to the eight local government districts in the state to mobilise, sensitise and to raise consciousness among the people.
According to him, the state has a well organised traditional institution which has been well studied and found out to be well established and useful.
Sajoh explained that Adamawa has eight first class traditional chiefs, 108 District Heads, 718 Village Heads and the over 7,813 Ward Heads (Mai Angwa).
He said that the ward heads have their areas of jurisdiction and to an extent, know everybody within their wards.
“Each village head gets information of what goes on in the area from the mai angwa and each district heads gets information from the village heads, the emir or the king gets it from the district heads.’’
This structure, the commissioner said, had assisted the people to check when a stranger enters the village or a strange happening occurs.
He expressed delight that utilising this existing structure for the purpose of development, Public-Traditional Institution Partnership had evolved.
According to him, through this partnership, the traditional institution participates in ensuring some measure of community policing.
“When a stranger comes in or a strange occurrence happens in a particular location, we call the ward head or the village head to tell us what is happening in his locality.
“He tells the district head, the district head tells the emir, the emir tells the government, or we can come directly and ask you.’’
To ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of this arrangement, the commissioner said that the government had created a data bank of the traditional rulers, the district heads, the village heads and the ward heads.
The data bank, he said, comprised their names, addresses and phone numbers.
He said that due to the effectiveness of the process, the government had gone further to use it to mobilise for security and to monitor development.
“We ask the `mai angwa’ and the village head to go to the village primary school and see if the teachers are in the class teaching or are they sitting under the tree and allowing our children waste.
“We will call them in the night to go to the clinic in their village find out if the health workers who trouble us asking for night allowance, do they really spend the night in the clinic’’.
The commissioner said that the state, through the traditional institution, had evolved an empowerment programme called “Bindo for Social Change’’. (NAN)