‘LCDAs creation ’ll bring governance to grassroots’

By Adekola Afolabi
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Ondo State Governor Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has said creation of LCDAs will bring governance closer to the grassroots adding that Ondo State people need it.

Akeredolu made the assertion  while receiving the report of the Committee for the Creation of Local Council Development Areas, (LCDAs), in his office.

The governor who emphasised the need to create the LCDAs in the state, added that his administration is serious about the exercise and  committed to it.

He particularly thanked the Chairman and other members for doing a thorough job for  the state with a promise to look into the report and do the needful to further bring good governance to the grassroot levels.

He said the people take the issue of local governments seriously because of its importance to them and the development of the grass roots.

Akeredolu made the assured that in the next few months, the LCDAs would be created in the state after perfecting the necessary papers.

Earlier submitting the report to the governor, the Chairman of the committee, Prince Adelanke Odogiyon, appreciated him for the opportunity given to them to serve, noting that the members carried out the work to the best of their ability with the strong belief that it would meet the expectation and fulfill its purpose.

The Chairman recommended that the state government should seize the opportunity of the LCDAs to lay a solid foundation at the grassroot level of governance by ensuring proper training for those to man them.

Odogiyon informed the governor that when created, the LCDAs would afford the government the opportunity to address the failure of governance at the grassroot level.

“It is an opportunity to erect structures and have people of integrity to man this level of governance. It is supposed to be a training ground for higher levels of service,” he stressed.

It would be recalled that the governor inaugurated the committee on March 21, 2019.

The Chairman explained that in the course of the exercise, the committee received 94 memoranda which contained the requests for 105 LCDAs.

“We had to sieve through this gamut of requests to remove the chaffs from the grains. May I report to you Mr. Governor that we had more grains than chaffs and that made our task more arduous. We therefore had to engage in multiple sieving of the applications to bring the grains to what we considered to be a reasonable number.

“After collating the requests and dissecting them, we embarked on a state wide public hearing which afforded sponsors of Memos the opportunity to defend and present their Memos. It was a very enlightening tour in which we resolved various age-long rivalries between some neighbouring communities who were not seeing eye to eye. Some we were not able to resolve,” Odogiyon added.

He said the large number of memoranda submitted by the people and huge crowd that turned out everywhere during public hearing was an eloquent testimony to the yearnings of the people of the state for good governance at the grassroot level.