Don Decries Collapse Of Local Government System

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The Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University, Kashere, Gombe State, Professor Umaru Pate has decried the collapse of the local government system in the country, saying that some of the challenges the country is facing in its security system correlate with the killing of the local government system.
Professor Umaru Pate spoke yesterday as a keynote speaker during the Median Colloquium organized by Wikki Times, an online media with the theme ” Sustaining Democracy through fearless Grassroot Accountability Journalism” with support from MacArthur Foundation, held at the Mahcozy Investment Estate in Gombe state.
He stated that the local government is an important part of the country federation because the majority of the people stay at the local government and depend on it to do a lot of things, but unfortunately, the rate of unemployment at the local level is alarming.
The don said that despite the monthly allocation from the federation account local governments the masses have become continually poor.
“The latest figure from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that over 130 million Nigeria are living below the poverty line. In 1999, the figure was less than that when we became a democratic government, so does it mean that democracy has translated into poverty for Nigerians?
” Are we safer under the democratic dispensation? Are we more comfortable as a people under a democratic government or hungrier? These are basic questions we must all answer and if the responses are negative, it means that our leaders must sit and think twice before the people lose interest in democracy “
“We have all seen what happened in Srilanka,  that country should become a good lesson for us in Nigeria, how negligence from leaders and other things led to very disastrous consequences. I believe the media must play a very crucial role, but most the disturbing aspect of the whole thing is that even when the media can rise to the occasion by doing some fantastic investigations that reveal the misappropriation of resources, what have we seen? the reaction appears not encouraging, nobody seems to care” he said.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Editor in Chief of the Wikki Times, Mr. Haruna Salisu said the organization was founded in the year 2018 with the vision to do fearless and accountability journalism that covers politics, corruption, criminal Justice and Human Rights, adding that the organization also carries out Investigative stories that are Donor Funded driven.
He stated that the organization’s kind of journalism is to do aggressive Investigative stories that make efforts to hold leaders accountable, stressing that is the only way to advance government.

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