By Amaka Abayomi

Lagos—Immediate past governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, has said for Nigeria to witness any remarkable development, the citizens must learn to hold government at all levels accountable on how public resources are spent.

Obi, who was the Chairman of the  Government College, Ughelli, Old Boys Association, GCUOBA, annual luncheon party in Lagos, said “I always tell people to question how local, state and federal governments are spending the resources meant for the development of our nation. Though there is a lot of money in our country, but this makes it insignificant when placed alongside the huge cost of governance.

“As a governor, I was able to save over N300bn for Anambra State and I achieved this by cutting down on the cost of running the state. Though this didn’t go down well with some people but I’m glad with what we were able to achieve.”

Commending the efforts of GCUOBA in repositioning education, the former governor said education was the best legacy any government could bequeath its people as it was the only passport to greatness.

According to him, “While the average scores of students in public examinations in Ghana is 85 per cent, it is 35 per cent in Nigeria, and one of the reasons for the dwindling fortunes of the education sector is that government bears the huge cost of financing education which is, most times, unrealistic. Before we returned the mission schools in Anambra, there were 1,000 primary schools being financed by the state government though only 250 of them were government schools. Though there were initial hiccups when we returned mission schools, but education in the state is better for it.”

In his keynote address titled ‘Ebola: Lessons for an unprepared nation’, a former university administrator and expert in virology, disease control and prevention and an old student of the 1958 set, Professor Oyewole Tomori, said Ebola had given Africa a death blow smack on the face and the continent needed to rise up and do the right thing.

According to him, “The victory over disease is eternal vigilance and improved disease surveillance and control and we are lucky  that our labs were quick to detect the virus on time.”