By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
A peace advocate, Amina Temitope Ajayi has identified the problems plaguing the development of Nigeria and proffered solutions to such ills.
Queen Ajayi who gave a keynote address at a forum tagged; “Peace and Development- Panacea To Sustainable Development”, identified the besetting problems of Nigeria as: opacity in government, ethno-religious bigotry, election malpractices and corruption.
“For me, the factors that caused insecurity are tied down to the lack of transparency and accountability, where some ethnic groups feel marginalised, religious intolerance. electoral malpractice, the mismanagement of funds high levels of unemployment and the lack of respect to the rule of law, to mention but a few”, she said.
She further added that if Nigeria is to develop and bring development to the grassroots, government must be open or transparent in all its dealings.
Mrs Ajayi also warned that the Federal Government must break the over dependence on oil as the major revenue earner for the country and explore other aspects of the economy that are also revenue sources.
Queen Ajayi who is fondly called ‘Mama Disapora’ called on the government to embrace electoral reforms as a means of correcting some of the ills in the society
“Our electoral process must be reformed, free, fair and credible to all and sundry. We all have the responsibility of ensuring free, fair and credible elections andthis can be achieved if the agencies that are structured to conduct the election create a conducive and level playing field for all the political players,” she said.
Ajayi further stressed the need that religious and tribal sentiments must be completely put aside if the country must attain sustainable development.
