LG polls: APC candidate promises responsive, accountable govt.

 Mr Muazu Jantabo, the chairmanship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Lapai Local Government Area in the forthcoming Local government elections in Niger has promised to be accountable to the people if elected.

Jantabo, who said this in Lapai on Tuesday, said that governance was about being responsive and accountable to the people, adding that past chairmen of Lapai had not done enough in that regard.

“With due respect to our past leaders, they have not been responsive enough to the problems confronting our people and we also have issues of accountability.

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“Before now, everything in the council was shrouded in secrecy and nobody seemed to know what was happening but we want to change that,” he said.

He noted that child and maternal health, education, sanitation, boosting the council’s internally generated revenue and tackling youth restiveness would be his priority in office.

On the issue of ghost workers, he maintained that it was a major problem at the local government level that required the use of technology to address.

“It is one of the biggest problems at the local government level across the country and by the time you try to tackle it, there will be some resistance.

“But what we intend to do is to use technology to address that problem because as it is now our payroll and payment vouchers are still paper based.

“In this age and time, we need to move beyond that and deploy technology and these things don’t cost much. Simple HR software can solve this problem,” he added.

On local government autonomy, the APC candidate said he was not too excited about it, arguing that it would adversely affect councils that are not viable unless they devise ways to boost their IGR.

“There is this general euphoria about local government autonomy. I am not too excited about it because of our circumstance.

“In Niger for instance, we have about 7 LGs that are not viable and Lapai happens to be one of them. Lapai has never gotten more than N150million in a month and we have a wage bill of N120million and that is because oil price is revolving around 60 dollars.

“God forbid, but once there’s a drop in oil price as it happened few years ago what we get will reduce and that means we won’t be able to pay salaries.

“And there has never been a time Lapai generated more than N1million in a month. That is why I am not excited about autonomy and we must do something about IGR.

“Just imagine the autonomy is granted and we are faced with challenge of drop in oil price and Lapai gets N80million from Federation account and our wage bill is N120million. It is this joint account that will be used to augment.

According to him, local government areas must save for the rainy day by taking the issue of IGR seriously to be able to stand on their own.

The 38-year-old, who is the youngest candidate on the platform of his party, said that he is running for office to inspire and spark youth participation in politics after a failed attempt in 2016.

“There are certain frustrations we live with and instead of just sitting and complaining like many young people do, I decided to run for office to try and fix these problems.

“When I first contested in 2016, I didn’t win the primaries but then a lot of young people in the state started picking interest in politics.”

NAN reports that the local government election in the state has been slated for Nov. 30.

(NAN)