PARTNERS FOR DEVELOPMENT MEETING IN JIGAWA STATE-NIGERIA ORGANIZED BY CITAD

PARTNERS FOR DEVELOPMENT MEETING IN JIGAWA STATE-NIGERIA ORGANIZED BY CITAD CREATING A SYNERGY BETWEEN COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN PROMOTING COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT A KEY NOTE ADDRESS BY M. M. YUSIF 22 – 01 – 08 It is my pleasure to welcome you to this forum. It is truly a more pleasure for me to address such a distinguished audience of Representatives of Community-Based Organizations and Local Government Officials on Community Development in Jigawa State. The principle and intended practice of this forum is to brainstorm and exchange ideas between policy-makers at local level and voluntary mobilizers of people and resources for economic, social, and cultural upliftment of the people. I would like to observe that there is no reason to say that this does not look like a revolution. In whatever sense you may take a revolution. Because it is a process of change, which involves the people directly, and rely on them to make input in whatever government policy affects them. Or to make them economically and politically great actors to initiate what policies and projects would be developed to raise the standard of lives of the people. As CITAD has involved me in the training of the Community-Based Organizations on this matter I have spent a long time mulling over how could the beautiful ideas I heard from these organisations be directed and constructed as a model to promote the development of Jigawa State. With this new initiative from CITAD I have every confidence that the government of Jigawa state and the Local Administrations are creating a supporting environment which will help to resolve the problems of development in general and local or community development in particular. If this programme is allowed to continue (which I have no doubt it would) Jigawa state will show a light to other states in Nigeria for carrying government activities within a scope of a concept of development. this will reverse the trend of “former” Jigawa state that government projects are conceived and carried on because there is somebody who wanted it to be done in disregard of calculations of the benefits to the state. Furthermore, this kind of forum and the society of Jigawa as a whole will be exposed to the idea that we live in a global economy in which growth and development even of local communities is driven by modern economic activities such as financial flows, expansion of trade, increased productive economic activities i.e. industrialization and modern agriculture. In the twenty-first century, this must not be ignored. Otherwise we would be seeing continuous retardation of the local economy of Jigawa state. And the present government of Jigawa, which is resisting local patronage economic system, will have to continue to live with it. In our circumstances, it is not unreasonable to say we are far away from the global; system. Therefore, the process of the global economy will be more difficult to come to us without deliberate effort to pull it towards us. Many actors can do this – such as Local Government Administrations; Community Organizations; Corporate Business Organisations; Religious bodies; etc. Partly because of this, partnership for development has become a necessity. Despite all the criticisms that “partnership for Development” is created by World Financial Institutions to promote their interest, in our case the phrase “partnership for development” or “partners in development” is long in our history, as we have been having different community organizations and different cooperative societies jointly identifying and executing a development project. As well as collaboration between Local Administrations and Community Organizations. Several things have certainly changed since the on-set of the current global economy. A wide range of new issues, notably self-reliant voluntary, including community organizations, environment, free and private enterprise in the development of agriculture etc. are now on the agenda of what is termed as sustainable development. Therefore, many ideas and models peculiar to our environment and political structures need to be developed to map out in a coherent manner the development, modernization and progress of the predominantly rural Jigawa state. Perhaps the surest way of cultivating a new partnership between Community-Based Organizations and Local Government Officials is to examine the notions of Community Organization and Local Government Administration with a view to reconceptualise them in order to build a model of sustainable community development. The traditional conception of Community Organization is that it is a group of people whose members reside in a given locality – whether rural or urban – who mobilize resources to provide services such as roads, health centers or a school, etc. for social and economic development of the community. In other words it is a self-help organization. The organization lobbies for resources from local authorities, state agencies, private individuals and charge members some money in order to achieve its objectives. So, they normally have a very weak financial base. The services they offer are not planned and thought out of a target of economic development to attain. Most importantly, they appear and parade themselves as philanthropic organizations, thus while contributing some projects for development of their areas, but are undermining the entrepreneurial dynamics of the economy of their rural-based communities. For those reasons, it is not wrong to reconceptualise and refocus the method and goal of Community Organization. Accordingly a community organisation could be a social group whose members are community entrepreneurs with working capital, supported by local authorities and the state to operate as business holding for profit sake. They are to be availed with every kind of assistance – scientific research, management skills, and expanding their working capital – by the authorities and Non-Governmental Organizations like the CITAD. The Local Government Administrations too could also be refocused to adapt to the new global system. But the traditional conception of Local Administration would not change because of changes in the global economic system. It remains as government at grassroots established by law, which exercise specific powers within defined areas. It is made or created by law to act as local state by carrying a long the people at community levels to provide services for development of the area to complement the activities of the State and Federal Governments. While the meaning of Local Administration would remain, as we know it, yet the structures and functions of the system may be re-oriented to face the new demands of social, economic, cultural and political development of Jigawa state. This poses a particular challenge for the State Government, the Local Authorities and the Community Organization as well as other social groups. One is that there may be scepticisms from all concerned as the functions and the structures of the Local Government System is already in the legal system and so trying to re-orient it may generate conflicts and contestation. Two, human beings of all character are the lives that are more susceptible to change, but are the ones most resistant to change of what they have come through for many decades. Yet, the restructuring and redefinition of the Local Government System could start gradually. May be by an experiment with one Local Government Council. As is the case of the idea of “New Community Organisation” the Local Government Council would appear like a Business holding. The councillors would be like Board members representing their various constituencies while the chairman like an Executive Director. Under the general coordination and supervision of the chairman, the elected councillors, instead of taking away a very big proportion of the resources of the Local Government while doing nothing except attending meetings of the council, they could be made to become monitors, guarantors, advertisers, chief marketers, etc. of Business Organizations and activities in their areas. Or course, this will be a major undertaking to turn round the practice of Local Government Administration. But I have said above that all these can be done within the framework of the law, which created the present Local State System in Nigeria. The 1976 Local Government Reform has already provided by a leeway how all these can be done when it is recommended and accepted the Federal Government that the New Local Government System from 1976 is a community approach to development, in which the Local Authorities are empowered to mobilize resources and plan for development of their areas and it is added that it could become a springboard for National Development. Thus, it is possible that when Community Organizations and Local Government functions are redefined as above, a perfect union or partnership may be evolved for development of Jigawa state and Nigeria at large. The partnership may embrace: 1. Rural Industrialization 2. Shareholding Cooperatives in agricultural production 3. Private or Cooperative rural credit institutions 4. State and or private women economic projects 5. A new and revitalized education system to support creation of a new society and new economic actors. These would require a long-term plan by a single local state or by the state government. This will need huge investment on infrastructures such as roads, electricity and water. On Administrative restructuring which would seem the most sensitive for reasons of what would happen to the existing personnel and staff of the Local Government Council. No existing Departments or Units in the Local Government Bureaucracy will not be relevant. But redefining their functions and responsibilities is necessary. Department of Agriculture may also take the responsibility of problems about rural industrialization and shareholding farm cooperatives; Department of treasury may monitor rural credit institutions; other Departments like of taxation, security and civil affairs may be formed. The management and control of the system will be based on private efficiency not on public owned which would normally result in misappropriation of the resources. Therefore, there would be training and retraining as well as reorientation of the staff whom many of them are to become field workers while others would become assistants of the new community organizations. My conclusion is that this will generate more wealth, create more employment, Jigawa state becomes more urban and the economy relatively modernized. Subsequently we would come to need not self-help. And Local Government Administrations will not rely only on Federal Government subvention because there would be much revenue to come in taxes, which will be adequate to provide social services and infrastructures. Furthermore, the developing private Community Organizations would develop their areas not as self-help but to promote their profit interests. I would like to finish off by wishing you going back to your stations safe and continue talking about these ideas. Because as African people say even talking too much about a lie or an impracticable assumption could make them become truth and reality respectively.