Political scientists and related scholars have decried poor service delivery among the ruling class in Nigeria, noting that “service delivery is not on the top priority list of the governing class.”
The scholars took this position in a communiqué issued at the end of their third annual conference under the aegis of the Nigerian Political Science Association, South West Zone, held at Lead City University, Ibadan, Oyo State, from March 26th to 29th, 2924.
The political scholars said: “Politics has been conceived and seen by the political class and members of the public as the struggle for power and access to public resources for self-enrichment and aggrandisement.”
In the communiqué signed by the President of the association, Professor Adefemi Isumonah, and its ex-officio member, Professor Sat Obiyan, the Nigerian Political Science Association said, “Poor service delivery is evident from poor road networks and bad roads; poor sanitation or waste management; epileptic power supply, to mention but a few.”
According to the political scientists, politics had sadly been conceived and seen by the political class and members of the public as “the struggle for power and access to public resources for self-enrichment and
aggrandisement.”
The association added: “The governing class does not seem to appreciate that it is in their self-interest to pay attention to robust and efficient service delivery, the lack of which was a trigger for military intervention in politics in the past and the resurgence of unconstitutional change of government in some West African states in recent times.”
The conference therefore recommended that the political class and the Nigerian public embrace the concept of politics as “the concern with public good or the pursuit of public good as espoused by Plato, Aristotle, and Martin Luther King, Jr.”
They also recommended that “the political or governing class should place service delivery on the top of their priorities as a matter of self-preservation for improving productivity and lifestyles and minimising the emigration in droves of highly trained Nigerian professional young men and women to other countries with destabilising consequences for the country.”
In addition, the conference recommended “people’s engagement with decision-makers at all levels of government with a focus on the determination and pursuit of public interest rather than the quest for personal favours, which promotes misallocation of public resources and worsens Nigeria’s underdevelopment.”
In a keynote address entitled “Nigeria: Democracy, Ominous Prophecies and Service Delivery”, a political scientist and former Vice Chancellor of Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Professor Kayode Soremekun, argued that “doubts about Nigeria in the literary works of Professor Wole Soyinka and Professor Chinua Achebe, and
Adunni Oluwole’s dramatic opposition to Nigeria’s independence from Britain in 1960, had been proven true by crippling fault lines ‘in the oil industry, where to date Nigeria continues to be a bystander in this critical area of her life and poor service delivery.’”
Earlier in an address, the President of the association in the South West Zone, Professor Isumonah, said Nigeria was dominated by the prevailing concepts of politics, which he said emphasise “power and influence in the mindset of powerful state and non-state actors and extol their struggle for power and resources.”
The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Professor Tunji Olaopa, who chaired the opening of the conference, lauded the Nigerian Political Science Association, Southwest Zone, for the choice of the theme, “Nigeria’s Fourth Republic at Twenty-Five: Democratic Governance, the State, and Service Delivery,” saying it gave indication of a gap-bridging between town and gown with a focus on service delivery for deepening democratic governance.
Vice Chancellor of Lead City University, Professor Kabiru Adeyemi, while welcoming participants to the conference, noted that the theme of the conference “encapsulates the pivotal need to reflect upon our nation’s odyssey towards democratic governance and the imperative task of delivering essential services to our populace.”
Over 60 papers were presented at the conference, where numerous scholars and political scientists, including Professor Tunde Adeniran, Professor Gabriel Ogunmola, Professor Jide Owoeye, the first generation of political science teachers and scholars, Emeritus Professor ‘Bayo Adekanye, Emeritus Professor ‘Bunmi Ayoade, and Emeritus Professor Adele Jinadu, appraised Nigeria’s 25 years into the Fourth Republic.
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