NIG tasks FG, states to pursue people-oriented goals in 2017

Governments at all levels in Nigeria have been asked to pursue people-oriented goals in 2017 to be able to improve the living standard and people’s lives.

The Nigerian Independence Group (NIG), a socio-economic think tank, which made the call, also urged the citizens to remain vigilant and ensure that governance serves their best interest.

The advice was contained in a New Year Day felicitation issued by the group in a press statement signed by its Convener, Professor Akinyemi Onigbinde.

The NIG stated:  “We join all Nigerians in celebrating the successful exhaustion of the year 2016 as they no doubt survived the throes of unprecedented economic crisis, insecurity, and exacerbated rot that characterised the spent epoch.”

The group noted that the challenges were “the corollary of wrong leadership choices and decisions,” but added that “the people survived by a special grace.

“As the year 2017 beckons, we ask Nigerians not to relent in their characteristic resilience and moral resistance to non- beneficial policy options. We must always remember that eternal vigilance is required for good governance to be realised.

“It is our hope that Nigerians would have been afforded the learning curve towards adapting to the new realities, and ensure that no opportunity for achieving their quest for upward mobility is left unexplored.”

It said, “The NIG is not unaware of how government policies, blueprints and budgetary decisions are key to unleashing the opportunities requisite to mitigating the harsh economic conditions that the people have endured.

“We however call on government at all tiers to be more responsive to the people. We ask that this time, budgets should not just be about empty ‘buzzphrasing’ and the bureaucratic rituals that only empower a few cronies of elements in power, but conceptualized in manner that can afford the extrication of most from the backwaters.”