Nigerian Constitution Empowers Citizens To Participate In Governance –
(PICaN)
By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSONThe Partnership for Issues-Based Campaign in Nigeria (PICaN) has insisted that electorate should be knowledgeable that the Nigerian constitution empowers them to participate in governance
PICaN’s Yusuf Goje stressed this at the dialogue they organised for gubernatorial candidates in Kaduna State in collaboration with Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL/FCDO) and Legal Awareness for Nigeria Women (LANW), held on Monday September 26, 2022.
Making a presentation titled, “Imperative of Issues based campaigns and #The Agenda Web Platform”, Goje said, “Nigerian Constitution guarantees participation of citizens in governance and gives them the right to demand for and request what they want the leaders to do while in office.”
According to him, such is the reason why they should demand for social contract from candidates before elections.” Today we stand with our candidates to interact with us, based on the provisions of the 1999 Constitution.
“We see votes being taken away without any social contract. There must be a mandate, based on social contract.
“What is working well should be sustained, what is not working well should be discarded,” he said.
Goje, who is also the Convener of the Kaduna State Local Government Accountability Mechanism (KadLGAM), said that as such, Citizens are demanding social contract.
“Kaduna State has population of over nine million which is a huge human resources that can be tapped into,” he added.
The dialogue with candidates and the civil society community, including women, youth and persons with disabilities, was organized to set agenda through dialogue with governorship candidates to deliberate on citizens’ groups agenda and candidates’ blueprint towards agreeing on developmental commitments in key sectors, if they win the 2023 polls.
