Twenty seven months after leaving office after a two-term of eight years tenure, the immediate past executive governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, has bemoaned the cost of governance in Nigeria as very high and called for a drastic trim down of the cost.
Obi’s angst against the high cost of governance in Nigeria was laid bare at the unveiling of eight books on Catholic Church’s social teachings published in the Catholic Institute for Development, Justice and Peace (CIDJAP) Enugu.
Unveiling the books, the former governor regretted that cost of governance in the country was avoidably too high, suggesting that bringing it down would make room for enough fund to be available for everybody, which he said would help to stabilize the country’s economy.
Obi who said he learnt a lot during his tenure in office as state governor, observed that the work done by CIDJAP was of great assistance to any government because the non-governmental was actually undertaking and executing people-oriented projects that ordinarily are government responsibility.
He called on government not to neglect CIDJAP but to rather collaborate with it by supporting and encouraging it to do more for the general good of the downtrodden.
According to the new Director of CIDJAP , Rev. Fr. Anieke Chinedu Odinkemelu, the organization has “through its numerous projects in the area of education and child sponsorship/scholarship programme, prison and human rights struggle, primary health care and general health provision, housing and community development initiatives, micro-credit and loans facility, democracy monitoring and good governance projects, caritas and social assistance for the indigent and the downtrodden of the society, conflict resolution and peace building, Muslim-Christian dialogue, corporate social responsibility, women and youth’s rights, and HIV/AIDS, touched the lives of millions of people by relentlessly pursuing its tripartite causes of justice, development and peace.”
He explained these virtues as the ideals to which the organization has been committed and by which it is driven, maintaining a clear focus to serve the needs of the people, adding that reading, writing and publication of books were part and parcel of the objectives and purpose of CIDJAP.
CIDJAP, which was founded in October 1986 by the erudite professor of Theology and Ethics, Monsignor Obiora Ike, now heading the Geneva based world body, Global Ethics, has so far since its inception done a total of 1,265 life enhancement projects in the area of health, education, poverty alleviation, human and child rights, agriculture, etc.
CIDJAP is the active organ for promoting the mandate of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission by putting the social teachings of the Church into practice.
Congratulating the organization on the books’ publication and undertaking of people-oriented projects, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State encouraged the organization to continue to do well for the betterment of the society.
In his speech, the chairman of the occasion and former governor of old Anambra State, Senator Jim Nwobodo, lamented the negligence of past governors like himself in the cost of governance.
He complained that since he left office as governor, no pension has ever been paid to him by successive governments, advising people in government to be careful not to allow their heads to swell because they’re in government because power is a very transient condition of life and if one is not careful one could end up crashing out of power and in shame, as power comes and passes away very fast.
