Donald
The cornerstone of democracy is the concept of peoples’ sovereignty. The citizens have the ultimate power which they mandate to elected officials to hold in trust for them and to utilize same for the greatest good of the greatest number. This power is granted and renewed through elections in which the voters’ will is sacrosanct [when votes are counted and they count!]. Because the mandate is renewable and is held at the pleasure of the electorate, the political leaders endeavour to give and receive regular feedback to their masters [the voters] so as to report on their performance, listen to criticisms and decipher issues of interest to the people. This feedback comes from sundry government functionaries, political operatives, public speeches [including budget and independence speeches], official tours and sponsored publications.
In recent times, the town-hall meeting concept has evolved as one of the most effective strategies for practical and unfiltered feedback sessions between the government and the governed. This is because it involves direct interaction between the political leader [LG chairman, governor, and legislator] and his/her constituencies to which the political office-holder presents a report-card while the people present a basket of questions, comments, and complaints and as usual, requests.
Leaders in the South-Eastern part of Nigeria and their political constituents however face a peculiar challenge in utilizing and managing the town-hall meetings for feedback purposes. This is because most of their people live outside the South-East; they are scattered in the local and international Diaspora! So, it is either the official interacts with the aged and a sprinkle of youths in the community or the people have to return from wherever they are based for that purpose or he has to wait for festive occasions when a sizeable number of indigenes would be at home so as to meet a full town hall! It was in an effort to tackle this challenge that Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State, in collaboration with the Association of Anambra Development Unions held a town-hall meeting with Anambrarians in Lagos on 7/6/09.
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There are 120 Anambra towns in Lagos and each sent a maximum of 8 representatives for the town-hall meeting. To fast-track the process, they were asked to collate their requests, questions and comments up-front and about 30 town unions did so before the day. Their representatives, apart from presenting these communal positions also asked question/made comments at the venue. After the opening remarks and welcome address, the governor gave his report card. But beyond the usual things that governors do talk about and which are the same things that the collated reports also highlight-(roads, hospitals, schools and the like), there were other issues that emerged from this town-hall meeting held in foreign land.
The rising insecurity in the state especially the increasing incidences of commercial kidnapping came in for significant attention. The State Assembly has already passed a law making it a capital offence which therefore attracts capital punishment. Efforts to develop the state through endowments were discussed. Projects like the K.O Dike Library, generators for schools and purpose-built trucks for environmental sanitation; designing of a long-term development framework for the State through the Anambra Integrated Development Strategy [ANIDS] which is designed to develop all the sectors/parts of the state simultaneously; and the completion of master-plans for Awka, Onitsha & Nnewi, the political and commercial nerve centers of the state were considered. As the Nairobi-based UN Habitat once described Rio de Janeiro as organized chaos the situation in Onitsha could equally be described as disorganized chaos!
Certain issues have arisen from this town-hall meeting in the Diaspora, some of which actually go beyond Anambra state. For instance, the Governor has spent a greater part of the last 3 years in planning and thus laying foundation for the future greatness of the state. But the question of continuity and sustainability becomes pertinent. How does Anambra ensure that the plans are executed irrespective of who initiated them and irrespective of whom is in power? Can that be legislated? One of the reasons why Lagos is on the move is that Fashola continued with some of the plans initiated by Tinubu. Other South-East governors can also benefit from the town-hall in the Diaspora idea. But it is more important that they work jointly and severally to develop the Igbo-heartland so that people will be encouraged to return. At the rate things are going now, in the next two decades, there may not be healthy young men and women in Igbo land; they would all have emigrated to the cities where opportunities are fast vanishing and where most would end up being mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, and victims of our usual sectarian bloodbaths. Indeed, as the federal government makes efforts to attract Nigerians from abroad, these states that suffer from population hemorrhage should map out plans to attract some of their people back home and also prevent many more from leaving. This requires serious and coordinated policy response.
