Yiaga Africa Faults Lack of Trust for Poor Democratic Governance

Gilbert Ekugbe

Yiaga Africa has stated that there is an increasing lack of trust between citizens and government institutions hindering effective democratic development in the country.

The Programme Manager for Governance and Development, Yiaga Africa, Ibrahim Faruk, stated this on the sidelines of its retreat on the opportunities for deliberative democracy at the local level for local government and citizens representatives in Ikeja, Kosofe and Surulere Local Government Areas (LGAs) stated the urgent need to reestablish the trust to deliver the dividends of democracy in Nigeria.

He stated that to build the connection and reestablish the trust, Yiaga’s people’s assembly would help to provide the platform for citizens to interact with local government executives and chairmen of different LGAs on the way forward.

He said: “Some citizens normally might not have had access to interact with their Chairman let alone able to make those connections. We want to bridge the gap between citizens and the State and the State in this instance is the local government executives to build that trust and to reestablish that connection and this also gives the local government more legitimacy, when decisions are taken in consultation with the people in the local government areas.”

“So this year at yaga Africa, one of the things that we are focused on is how we can improve democratic practice and build citizens power to reclaim the States and one of the ways we are doing that is through this people’s assembly, a model that is centered around deliberative democracy. What this means is that citizens have an opportunity to deliberate to creating a space where they learn creating a space where you identify issues but also find what are the common solutions and this is part of a project called turn of democracy,” he said.

He stated that early in the year, it had a meeting to bring together various groups such as youth groups, women groups, traditional institutions, religious institutions to have a conversation and to introduce them to the concept of deliberative democracy to identify issues and providing solutions.

“Now we are bringing together local government executives to meet with the people’s assembly groups that were established earlier and the opportunity to use this retreat to engage with local government executives for the local government executives also engage with the citizens in their local government areas to understand identify those problems and find common solutions i had mentioned earlier that at the various levels of government executives are able to take action and because we are focusing on a local level and we are also finding what are the local solutions,” he said.

“When I mean local, I mean the level that we are talking about, not federal solutions or state solutions, but what are the solutions that we can find that in local level after citizens have identified with the major concerns,” he averred
He stated that at the end of the retreat, Yiaga hoped that it would have been able to institute a practice of deliberative democracy that will deliberate on issues and provide key actions to providing long lasting solutions.

Earlier, the Senior Communications Officer, Yiaga Africa, Mark Amaza, pointed out the need to increase the participation of citizens in the decision making processes in their respective LGAs while also creating a space for people to learn.

“There is a declining trust of citizens in democratic processes because it is not yielding the dividends of democracy which is making them shy away from democracy. This is why we are implementing the people’s assembly which is currently being implemented in Lagos and Sokoto States,” he said.