The Federal Government has announced plans to harness the potential of local government wards to drive national development.
Atiku Bagudu, minister of budget and economic planning stated this in Abuja on Tuesday, at the ongoing Nigerian Economic Summit.
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According to him, efforts are currently ongoing to review the national development plan, with programs targeted at mapping all 8,809 wards of the local government councils in order to harness the unique potentials in the wards.
“All we need to do is to understand what you want us to do, and we will be humble to ensure. And we are having this discussion when we are reviewing the national development plan. So we are putting in place the 2026 to 2030 national development.
“And we are going to do a number of unusual things. We have started, first, we are going to map all the 8,809 wards of the council because they have unique opportunities, unique potentials. That we believe, if understood and encouraged, more value can be generated from what is done in those wards.
“It has been done elsewhere. Therefore, we have a planning hub. And then we can also unify the government because we assure the local government that understanding your wards is as important as the federal level understanding it,” he said.
Bagudu speaking further, said that in a bid to boost productivity and economic growth, Nigeria’s federal, state, and local governments are coming together to leverage their constitutional responsibilities.
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The minister who called for private sector collaboration to drive productivity in the country, stressed that these wards are centers of prosperity, noting that Nigeria currently have major productivity in a more decentralized manner.
“We are struggling with getting all the funding we require, but we believe assistance is systemic and already within the mandate areas of many institutions that are represented here, whether universities or research departments or banks or trade associations.
“So we need support with capacity building, and it can be helpful in improving measurement and understanding. But more importantly, we also recognize the coordinating mechanism of the federation, because Nigeria is a constitutional federation of three levels of government, federal, state, and local government, and each of them have a constitutional responsibility to some of the areas of productivity and growth.
“There is resources out there belonging to you that we can do it together. We have reached out to, for example, many institutions are providing and supporting us with technical support, you know, that we incorporate part of the changes,” he said.
Stakeholders at the session stressed on the need for government to boost partnerships with private sector, through incentives.
“But incentivize the private sector to begin to invest in free education as a social responsibility. Because millions of our kids cannot go to school today.
“Like the new tax reform starting in January 1st. If you give the private sector enough incentive, they will invest in education. There is need to incentivize the private sector to begin to invest in free education as a social responsibility. Because millions of our kids cannot go to school today,” a participant told the conference.
