Stakeholders identify bad roads, shortage of health centres, others as challenges facing state

A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), YIAGA Africa, yesterday, officially launched the Ekiti State chapter of the People’s Assembly towards ensuring the participation of residents in the government’s decision-making process.

This was as stakeholders identified poor road network, non-availability of public toilets, shortage of primary healthcare centres, among others, as challenges mitigating the local councils and the state as a whole.

The stakeholders, drawn from different civil society organisations based in Ekiti State, lamented that some of those challenges ought to have been solved by the councils, adding that the councils are unable to solve those identified problems because of lack of capacity and finances.

They said that they intend to interface with the government using the newly inaugurated People’s Assembly as a platform to do so.

Yiaga Africa Programme Officer, Olaniyan Sanusi, who spoke with journalists during the flag-off ceremony in Ado-Ekiti, said the People’s Assembly, which is an initiative sponsored by Open Society Foundation, is a form of deliberative democracy fashioned to promote public deliberations at the local council level, information sharing and inspire confidence in democracy.

He added that it was designed to support government and the people’s interaction, as well as to amplify citizen’s voices on policies in their community.

He said: “Today in Ekiti, we are establishing a People’s Assembly which is a form of democracy and what we are trying to promote here is a culture of public deliberation whereby citizens can contribute and influence the decision-making process at the local council level.

“We are also trying to improve citizens’ participation in democratic governance as a whole. We piloted this initiative in 2022 in Lagos and Sokoto states.”

In his remarks, Special Assistant to Governor Biodun Oyebanji on Youth Development, Olu-Ajayi Maxwell, said the leadership of the state government is making sure that all things are in tandem with the intention of making sure that governance is well-rooted.

He added that Oyebanji, through inclusiveness and involvement of grassroots in governance, had given power to council chairmen and other executives to discharge their official duties without hassles.