Seye Joseph
For residents of Isokan Itire Ijesha, Ayetoro Coker-Aguda and Obele Oniwala who all live in Surulere Local Government Area of Lagos State have commended International Press Centre (IPC) for waking them up to know how to make government accountable to demand from them basic amenities in their communities.
The program that seeks to strengthen the knowledge capacity of people living in communities to know their basic rights to demanding what they deserve from government in communities had been held in various communities in (Boshoa CDA, Orile Shomolu, Araromi Odo) in Shomolu; communities in Lagos Mainland Local Government, Oyingbo and in Surulere Local Government area of Lagos State.
Community should be the basic unit of development by virtue of the fact that this is where the overwhelming majority of the people, especially the poor and vulnerable who mostly need the basic essentials of life.
He said that since various communities in their varied forms and formats constitute the building blocks of local government, the local government that is the nearest to the people becomes the most important tier of government.
Youth Leader in Isokan Community, Kelechi Ndu expressed the needs of the youths to bring development in the community.
“We need empowerment in the community; we want to partner with IPC to bring development to our community.”
Ndu mentioned that there are twelve streets at Isokan community, none of the street is being tarred and they are all without drainage system.
According to him, “IPC has come to open our eyes on how to make government accountable; we are waking up from our slumber now.”
“I want to call on IPC to come and have this type of gathering in Itire Ikate to bring all the LCDA together to really fine-tune our development needs with the government officials.”
According to Aremu, no nation move forward without the input of grassroots development which is pertinent to national development.
“Every development and policies must come from the people and that is how people living in communities can be further empowered to drive development.”
He called on government at all levels to prioritise development for the people so that it can be control it.
He called on the grassroots community stakeholders to appreciate the enormous constitutional power they have and they can assert on their government especially at the grassroots level as citizens and electors to whom government is primarily put in place to serve while also appreciating their civic roles and responsibilities.
