CHRICED Advocates Community Participation for Sustainable Rural Development

By Zainab Olufunmi

Dr. Ibrahim Zikirullahi, the Executive Director, Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civil Education (CHRICED) has identified Community participation has as an effective driver of rural development.

Zikirullahi, spoke on Thursday at a training organised for Media and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on transparency, accountability in constituency projects service delivery in Kano.

“The sense of belonging to the federal and state in most communities is through constituency projects, hence they need be involved to ensure execution to the latter and specifications.

“Lack of involvement of the communities in the initiation of constituency projects seems to affect its proper implementation.

“The communities need to participate from its initiation and implementation stages to enhance sustainable development.

“Most of the time, those saddled to execute constituency projects do not seek the input of the benefiting communities before initiation and implementation; and that’s why some of the projects are not sustainable.

“More so, government presence in most communities is through constituency projects, giving the communities hope and a sense of belonging.

He said that the media and CSOs need to work closely by shining a spotlight on constituency projects, especially programmes on which the government expends public funds.

He noted that resources allocated for constituency projects, are meant to touch the lives of ordinary citizens at community levels.

He said that, “every kobo allocated to both state and federal levels should be well utilised to deliver devidend of democracy.

“We should therefore follow up, track and report any corrupt practices within the implementation of constituency project in Kano state.

“There is no need to rest on oars, efforts need to be put more in service delivery to ensure that politicians at the community levels do not squander our money.

“In 2022 our centre record a huge success, we were selected by the ICPC among the few organisations to join them in tracking some of the constituency projects.

“We made sure that some contractors that abandoned their constituency projects return to site and some have been completed and delivered,”he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that papers were presented on various ways to monitor constituency projects implementation, among others. (NAN)