GOOD GOVERNANCE DEMAND

I am Benjamin M Anyanwu,a human right and civil society activist

I am the executive director of Democracy And Rural Area Development Vanguard (DRADV),

DRADV is non profit, on governmental and non partisan organization, established to facilitate the attainment of social freedom, human rights, good governance, and sustainable development of rural communities in Nigeria.

Our core programming areas are democracy education, open budget system, participatory and good governance, advocating for the fundamental human rights and being the voice of the voiceless rural citizens, marginalized and vulnerable groups r the basic human needs, better living standard, poverty eradication etc.

1The citizenry don't know how to demand for good governance and accountability  from their elected public office holders. They are docile and passive while watching helplessly the massive looting of their commonwealth by public office holders.

Poor representative democracy, has resulted to poorer citizenry and richer representatives, because the citizens are excluded from budget processes, policy formulation process project/service procurement process, law making and as well as general governance activities.

2 Train the trainers political and democracy education program.

3 This project will produce politically conscious and democratically knowledgeable citizens who will no longer maintain the silent culture, but will keep on asking questions and demanding answers on how they being governed, thus keeping the public officials on their  toes to provide good governance ie provision of asphalted  rural area road networks, portable drinking water, electricity power supply, functional  primary health care centers etc.

One of the causes of lack of development in the rural communities, is because the rural community dwellers, lack the knowledge of their fundamental human rights, what representative governance is all about, how to make use of constituency office to demand for good governance and are docile and passive.

The rural community dwellers in all the 774 local government areas in Nigeria are ignorant of their constitutionally enshrined right to demand for good governance from their elected representatives, for the development of their communities.

This project will commence in ten local government areas in Imo State as pilot scheme with population of two million.

Corrupt , political leadership failure, and passive  citizenry who are turned into  hero worshippers, praise  singers and deliberately impoverished by the political office holders to continue clapping for them while they are busy looting their commonwealth, due to their lack of awareness and democracy education  are the main factors causing    lack of development in the rural areas.

The project will conduct train the trainers training programs in all 10 LGAs, comprising of 250 communities for the community stakeholders ie community leaders, women leaders, and youth leaders. Each community will produce three persons, these 300 people will be trained in political and democracy education and how to participate in democratic governance for the development of their  communities. At the end of the training, we will set up Rural Community Development Forum (RCDF) for each of these communities, as community based organization (CBO) They will step down the training to their various community members, speak out, amplify the voice of their people for infrastructural development, and engage their elected public officials for their community development.

This projects is out to empower the rural community dwellers via democracy education to enable them be in better position to know how they can politically articulate their demand for developmental needs.(rural good road networks, electricity power supply, functional health care centers etc.)

DRADV is a grass root civil society organization and we understand their needs for their community development because we have been working in these communities for a long time. In the cause of our CSO developmental activities, we have realized that they need this training as a matter of urgency  to improve their well being.

This project will produce well informed rural dwellers who will not be cheated again by the political class and contractors and will be in a position to sustain the project beyond the project funding life.

The project will offer, rural communities who are actually left undeveloped hence they can be best described as being left behind in the scheme of things. They have been looking for this type of opportunity that will educate them on how they can engage their elected public and government officials to develop their communities..They will grab and take advantage of this opportunity to attract infrastructures for their community developmental needs.

In 2015 and 2017 we conducted verification exercise of Imo State  abandoned capital project status and government annual budget literacy survey via questionnaire .We shockingly discovered that 95% respondents  were not aware of what annual budget is all about, the reason for the establishment of constituency office and how to make use of it to engage their elected representatives for their developmental needs. But the good side and encouraging aspect, is the citizens willingness to  learn and want to  know what they don't know, and are ready to put it into use in order to make changes for their bright future and that of their children.

It was after the above said projects that we got this idea of conducting train the trainers training programs and we have been looking for funding for this project.

I was brought up in the rural area, that lacked  electric power supply,  primary health care centers,  portable drinking water but village stream and none existing asphalted rural road networks for the farmers to evacuate their farm produce to the urban area markets, more especially during rainy season. These are my experiences in my village when I was growing up which had influenced me as fonder of this CSO. We focus and carry out our CSO, development activities in these rural areas, and all these  social infrastructures  that make life worth living and more meaningful, are lacking In the cause of our activities, these communities are not accessible during the rainy season due to bad road networks, and lack of electricity power supply. Non functional primary care health centre

I am a senior citizen, and an automobile engineer by professions, with over 35 years industrial experience, retiring into civil society organization by establishing DRADV in  2012.

We have been working in these rural communities for the past eight years as human right community development workers.

Lack community development by the government has been their challenge and this project is in a position to help solve their developmental problem, via train the trainers workshop programs

In 2015 we embarked on the status of abandoned capital project verifications in two out of 27 LGAs in Imo State, we met a brick wall at budget ministry when we demanded for  copies of the past five years annual budget. We persevered in writing for reminders, and series of visits to the budget ministry.

The pressure we mounted paid off at the end, because the document is public document and  to us .they have no choice but to release the budget copies us.

Another challenge, was those public officials who connived with the contractors to defraud and cheat the communities where either road or housing projects were sited created factions in these communities and  tried in vain to frustrate our  project. But majority of the people cooperated by volunteering information  and working with us by showing us the project locations in their communities.  

DRADV partnered with of other  CSOs in the verification exercise of the capital projects status in six local government areas with myself as the executive director of DRADV coordinating.

At the end of each verification, we invited the  communities at LGA headquarters and disclosed our findings, with advice to own the project by getting  involved in working with any contractor executing any project to avoid the project abandonment because they are always the looser and worst off when any contractor  connivance  with  government officials to embezzle the project fund.

Following the publication of the report and our findings, the government was compelled to mobilize some contractors back to site, while black listing some.