The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Alfred Adewale Martins, has charged civil society and other Nigerians with demanding that lower tiers of government (state and local) account for the allocations they receive.
Mr Martins gave the charge in an interview in Lagos. He said searchlights should be beamed on the local and state governments as they collected the larger budgetary allocations.
He said the subsisting approach of always focusing on the federal government for virtually everything was misleading and mostly ended in open-ended probes.
According to the cleric, the local and state governments receive votes from the centre for varying projects and services, which, if accomplished, will benefit the people.
Mr Martins said, “But sadly, these projects and services are mostly not carried out or executed. If we continue to concentrate attention only on the centre, it will give the public officials at the lower levels room to continue to swindle and loot public treasuries.
“But when stakeholders ask questions on how resources are being expended, it will make the managers sit up and execute programmes and services as required.
“They are our leaders and representatives, so the conventional terms of the social contract reached with the leaders during electioneering should be seen to be upheld.”
The cleric urged the numerous civil groups in the society to lead in this call for others to follow. He noted that focusing only on Abuja had been the practice with no significant outcome.
He also decried the economic challenges people faced due to unpopular policy drives and called on civil society organisations to change their tactics and demand stewardship from local council leadership.
The cleric frowned upon the level of disconnect between the people and the government, adding that the best place to start to demand good governance and accountability was for the government to be closer to the people.