Badaru
Omeiza Ajayi – Abuja
Governors on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have set up a Governance Programme Steering Committee to evolve a common governance template for themselves and as well revisit all policy initiatives and recommendations, including those of Governor Nasir El-Rufai ‘s Committee on True Federalism.
Badaru
The Chairman of the Committee, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, disclosed this at a press conference after the inaugural meeting of the committee in Abuja on Friday.
“The committee is tasked with looking at how we govern our states and advise on improvement in the governance structure of the three tiers of government and ensuring synergy among them too,” the Jigawa State governor said.
He said apart from revisiting all-party initiatives and policy issues, the committee would also undertake some speer review of APC governors.
Abubakar added: “Certainly, there will be peer review mechanism and the issue of agriculture and free education or education generally will be looked at.. I believe all of you will agree on the policies to be adopted by APC states.”
On the El-Rufai committee’s report, the governor said; “I believe that is why we have this. All the initiatives that have been discussed, all the policy issues and recommendations that have been brought forward will be looked into and we will strengthen the capacity for implementation.
“A further proof of our commitment to good governance was our resolution at our November 2016 meeting in Kano that Secretaries to Governments of APC States should meet quarterly to brainstorm, share experiences and evaluate the implementation of commonly shared governance initiatives. So far, seven quarterly meetings have been held, and a number of important recommendations have emerged from those meetings. All the recommendations from the quarterly meetings of our Secretaries to Governments have been approved by the Forum.
“Therefore, during the era of 2019-2023, we will want the work of the PGF Governance Programme Steering Committee to focus more on strengthening the capacity of our states to have increased commitment to implement approved initiatives. This may require more initiatives around issues of capacity development for the functionaries of our state. This will have to be well-tailored around the initiatives we subscribe to rather than the generic approach.”
The Co-Chairman of the committee, Barr. Simon Lalong, said “given the challenge of ensuring that we achieve the vision of making our party, the APC, emerges as a distinctly social democratic party, the policy initiatives of all APC governments, particularly at the state levels, will be the defining credentials. In addition, ensuring uniformity of policy initiatives among the APC states is a fundamental requirement.”
Lalong, who was represented by his deputy, Prof. Sonni Gwanle Tyoden, noted that between 2015 and 2019, the Progressive Governors have made some efforts to adopt common initiatives.
“Based on the assessment of initiatives from our states and critical assessment of the challenges facing our states, Forum has already agreed to some priorities, which include revenue mobilisation, funding for security, education, and health.
“We need to aggressively ensure that we are able to settle all public debates around the distinction between APC, on the one hand, and PDP and other parties, on the other. It is not a theoretical issue but concretely about the initiatives coming from APC governments, especially the states”, the Plateau State governor added.
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