Cleric wants cost of governance reduced

FORMER Chaplain of Aso Villa and the General Overseer of All Christians Fellowship Mission, Abuja, Reverend William Okoye, has called on the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari , to reduce the cost of governance and prune down the number of political offices in the country in line with global trends.
He also urged Buhari to revisit the Stephen Oronsaye-led Committee’s report on civil service reforms which recommended scrapping of some agencies for guidance.
Speaking at the church service to mark Easter celebration, Okoye noted that there is no loser or winner in the just concluded Presidential election adding that those who said Nigeria will cease to exist by 2015 have been put to shame.

“ We voted for a cause and not for individuals. There should be no regret for your actions. God has a purpose for what He did. Let us all submit joyfully to the will of God. There is no way an incumbent President will be defeated if the system is not clean. If President Goodluck Jonathan were to be desperate, there is no way an incumbent President will be defeated because the results will be in his hands even before the election.”
The cleric appealed to President-elect to guard against religious and ethnic politics and also eradicate mediocrity in governance.

According to him, it is imperative for the incoming administration to promote meritocracy above other considerations.
He said, “He should endeavour to reduce the cost of governance by taking another look at the remuneration of political office holders, reduce the number of political offices and revisit the Oronsaye Report on civil service reforms for guidance.

It is not going to be easy but that is the cost of leadership. Nigeria is about the most expensive in terms of paying of political office holders and we are not so rich. If other rich countries could cut down their cost of governance, we should do that as well, unless we don’t want to move forward, especially given our present economic challenges.”

Okoye urged Buhari to bring an end to the incessant clashes between farmers and Fulani herdsmen across the country.”

He said, “I congratulate Buhari on his historic victory at the polls; his reputation as a statesman committed to eradicating corruption in governance gives Nigerians hope for a better tomorrow. I will advise therefore that he concentrates on areas of his comparative advantage to move our country forward, because no one administration can achieve everything it promises.
He however, warned against cutting down the meager salaries of civil servants, saying “rather, we should look for a way of making them more productive and continue to pay them well.”

“In any area that we have many civil servants, we can easily retrain them and send them to areas like the agricultural sector, where we need a lot of hands. Instead of retrenching them, government should retrain them and move them in that direction”, Okoye stated.

Speaking on the recently concluded Presidential election, he said “God has spoken because without God’s intervention, by now, it would have been a different story.”
He said, “God’s intervention in answer to His people made the election relatively peaceful and that is why we are still living together. My message: Nigeria is under God’s control and anything under God’s control can never go out of control. We should continue to pray and work hard by joining hands with the new and in-coming administration to keep on moving the nation forward.