Never be dependent on anyone in this world because even your own shadow leaves you when you're in darkness.
Friday, 16 August 2024
Sunday, 23 July 2023
Friday, 30 December 2022
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to all and best wishes.
There is no doubt that the outgoing year has been quite challenging with harsh economic realities. There has been soaring inflation with the costs of virtually every item prohibitive.
Crime and criminality including but are not limited to kidnapping, terrorism, and armed robbery prevalent.
Despite all these challenges, however, we give God the praise for allowing us to see this year.
This is an election year when citizens are expected to vote for leaders at national and state levels including the election of the President and Governors of respective states.
Campaigns have already commenced in earnest with the rhetorics and mud-slanging order of the day.
Our prayer is that we have peaceful, free, and fair elections at the end of the day, so that the elections produce people's choices.
At the end of the day, it is hoped that those elected will usher us to improved standards of living.
Once again Happy New Year and Best Wishes!
Friday, 22 October 2021
GOVERNANCE AND REGULATORY INSITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS
GOVERNANCE AND REGULATORY INSITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS AND THE TRANSFORMATION AGENDA
(Being a paper presented by Joshua T. Abu (Retired Public Servant), at an Interactive Session with Participants of the Senior Executive Course SEC No. 35, 2013 of the National Institute (NIPPS), Kuru, Jos, Plateau State held on Thursday, 25th April, 2013 at the Banquet Hall, Government House, Yola)
Protocol:
Introduction:
I am indeed highly honoured and humbled by the invitation extended to me by the organizers to make this presentation at this Interactive Session with participants of the Senior Executive Course of NIPS, Kuru - Jos. I consider this year’s theme and in particular the sub-theme assigned to me most appropriate, not only as a pre-condition for restoring sanity and order in governance, but for resolving several other challenges which presently confront us as a nation.
The terms "governance" and "good governance" specifically, are increasingly being used in development literature, with bad governance being regarded as one of the root causes of the problems in our societies. This has necessitated the embarking on several reforms by governments to ensure "good governance". No doubt therefore, good governance is the antidote to many of the myriad of problems and challenges confronting us as a nation.
The crisis of development in Africa has been described as a “crisis of governance” by the World Bank (2003). This is rightly so, in view of the fact that African democratic experience has been grappling with a leadership that has been characterized by corruption, authoritarianism and violence, contributing to the present economic and political violence, repression and famine in most of Africa. Good governance is synonymous with sound development management while bad governance has lack of accountability and transparency as its main features and is linked to socio-economic performance. While bad governance negatively affects the quality of public goods and services and imparts negatively on service delivery generally.
The Imperative of Good Governance:
The role of the state and that of regulation have been changing over time starting with interventionist government, followed by minimal state and now regulatory state. Under the notion of regulatory state, emphasis has shifted to “better regulation” and “good governance”. The need for effective regulatory institutional frameworks to sustain the process of economic growth and development is now widely recognised. Good governance and regulatory governance in particular has been found to be very critical to sustainable development.
Governance: Definition: "Governance" as a concept is as old as human civilization. It is about processes, and not necessarily about ends. Governance has generally been defined as a system of values, policies, and institutions by which a society manages its economic, social, and political affairs usually through interactions within the state, civil society and the private sector (Shabbir Cheema, April, 2004; UNDP, 1997; UNDP, 2000).
It comprises the mechanisms and processes for citizens and groups to articulate their interests and to work together and mediate their differences, as well as exercise their legal rights and obligations with rules, institutions, and practices that set limits and provide incentives for individuals, organizations and firms. Good governance on the other hand, refers to the way and manner a society organizes itself to ensure equality of opportunity and equity (social and economic justice) for all citizens and also promotes people-oriented development (Shabbir Cheema, April, 2004).
Governance is believed to have evolved from the need by society to organise its members towards achieving a common purpose - their well being and happiness. The desire of all peoples of the world from time immemorial has been for them to be governed well. This underscores the importance of good governance as an essential foundation for national progress and sustainable development. As the former UN Secretary-General – Kofi Anan rightly pointed out while addressing the Millennium Summit of the General Assembly of the UN in September, 2000: “Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development” (Adel M. Abdeelatif, 2003).
Since governance is the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented, an analysis of governance necessarily, focuses on the formal and informal actors involved in decision-making and implementing the decisions made. It also focuses on the formal and informal structures and institutions put in place to arrive at and implement the decisions. Governance however, is not only about the “organs” or actors, but more importantly it is about the quality of governance.
Good governance is grounded on certain predicates, which are, that: citizens and their governments do enter into a compact - agreement (social contract) in which the citizens expect returns from their rulers for the enormous power and resources vested in the governments. They expect the government to respond to their material and non-material needs through a systematic process of accountability, transparency, and checks and balances.
Part of this compact involves the creation of a participatory system of democratic governance, bound by peace and security and the rule of law as well as the development of institutions and institutional norms/regulations capable of producing sound economic-macro and micro-policies and management. The ultimate expectations are that this compact will significantly lead to poverty reduction. In a way therefore, good governance is an imperative for development (UNECA, 2001).
Challenges of Governance:
One of the major challenges is the lack of checks and balances (or mechanisms), strong enough to control the autocratic tendencies in government and to hold political actors accountable for their actions. Furthermore, politicians do not practice ethical politics as most of the time they fall short of the law. The political parties most of the time do not practice internal democracy; while the people are not well organized to challenge and demand accountability from their leaders. Corruption has also become so endemic, leading to poor governance, and which in turn hampers socio-political and economic development. Furthermore, regulatory institutions that should ordinarily deal with some of these challenges are mostly ill equipped, underfunded and are themselves not insulated from corruption and sharp practices.
Imperative of Regulation:
In the search for better governance, regulatory reform is critical (Kirkpatrick, 2006) and this is true of most developing economies, where weaknesses in regulatory rule-making are pervasive and where there is a general lack of accountability, transparency and consistency in policy formulation and implementation. Similarly, both foreign and domestic investors are discouraged from investing in countries where the regulatory framework falls far short of “good governance”. Governments in such economies have consequently come to the realisation of the urgency to improve regulatory governance in order to increase the levels of private investment and economic growth.
Concept of Regulation:
Regulation generally speaking, is an intervention between parties to a transaction. In its broadest sense, regulation facilitates transactions because it is the means used to provide the basic framework under which parties to a transaction conduct their businesses in a secure environment. Such a framework includes the regulatory provision or guarantee of human rights, a judicial system, property rights, rules of contract and competition among others. Regulatory intervention of this kind is generic and applies across the whole of the economy and society. Some of these regulatory interventions are so fundamental to the operations of a society and its economy such that they are built into the national constitution. Others however, become the subject of statute and secondary legislation.
It is pertinent to note, that the emergence of the regulatory state has put a significant burden on governments’ capacities to regulate effectively and efficiently. Furthermore, the importance of high-quality regulation is reinforced by the transition of growth strategies from state-led to market-led development, which many developing countries like ours are undergoing. Similarly, radical market liberalization especially in the absence of appropriate regulatory structures to promote and safeguard effective and healthy competition has led to a large extent, led to policy failures.
These trends in turn have led to a broad recognition of the need to better address the regulatory environment as part of the shift to market-led economic development and growth worldwide. As a result, better regulation has become an important part of the development policy agenda of most developing countries, Nigeria inclusive (Majone, Giandomenico, “The Regulatory State and Its Legitimacy Problems”, West European Politics, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1999).
Challenges of Regulatory Governance:
Regulatory reform in developing and transition economies faces a number of challenges which include among others:
1) Challenges of transferring “best practice” models that are rooted in different economic, social and political contexts of developed countries to developing countries. There is no ready-made or - “one size fits all” solution to all countries.
2) Lack of essential institutional underpinnings for effective regulatory reform especially in the areas of regulatory capacity. Most developing countries are short of both resources and expertise that are required for regulatory reform. Capacity building and financial and technical assistances are therefore, usually needed to drive such reforms.
3) Regulatory reform and policy in developing countries have to consider a wider range of objectives that are often beyond just the promotion of market efficiency. This is because it is important for regulatory policy in most of these developing countries to be “pro-poor”. For example, the fuel subsidy policy of government has to take note of its implication to the poor and less privileged as well as remote areas and so also is the electricity tariff regime.
Strengthening Institutional Frameworks for Good Governance: Adamawa State
In line with the Transformation Agenda of the Federal government and the need to promote good governance, the Adamawa State Government we can report has set in motion certain reforms and regulatory institutional frameworks that include the following:
1. Public Procurement: One of greatest challenges of good governance is transparency in public procurement. In line with this a Bill on Public Procurement has been passed into law by the State House of Assembly is awaiting assent by the Governor. Similarly a workshop on Public Procurement for top government functionaries has been conducted preparatory to implementing the law in the state.
2. Fiscal Responsibility: In its bid to ensure accountability, transparency and to fight corruption, a Bill on Fiscal Responsibility forwarded to the State House of Assembly has also been passed into law and is awaiting assent by the Governor. Furthermore, Fiscal Regulations are being reviewed by the Ministry of Finance to ensure that financial transactions are carried out within the law. In addition, a Committee has been set up to oversee the implementation of the Fiscal Responsibility Law when finally assented to.
3. Budget/Monitoring: The state government puts attention on performance budget. Consequently, a Committee has been set up to Monitor Budget Implementation. In addition, a Permanent Secretary has been specifically assigned to head and supervise budget preparation and implementation.
4. Contributory Pension Scheme: To minimise the problems associated with pension administration, and in line with the Federal Government’s Pension Reform, a Bill for the Establishment of Contributory Pension Scheme has been passed into Law by the House of Assembly and is awaiting Governor’s assent.
5. Rule of Law: Considering the critical role of the Judiciary in ensuring justice and rule of law, the State Government has improved the salaries and allowances of judicial officers in addition to enhancing its operational capability. Tribunals were also set up to handle Local Government Election Petitions arising from the conduct of the Council elections held in 2012.
6. Freedom of Information: In its bid to domesticate the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a Sensitization Workshop will be conducted in the first week of May, 2013 for relevant stakeholders including civil society organisations. In the meantime, information requested for are given to those who duly seek for them in the spirit of free flow of information.
7. Executive – Legislative Relationship: In order to allow for good governance and in the spirit of separation of powers, a Liaison Officer has been appointed to liaise and mediate between the legislature and the executive. This has facilitated a cordial relationship between the legislative and executive arms in the state.
8. Oversight Function: As part of its constitutional responsibility, the Adamawa State House of Assembly periodically undertakes oversight visits to Ministries and Departments for the purpose of ensuring that laws passed are implemented and for the purposes of law making.
9. Conduct Local Government Council Elections: In its bid to meet the constitutional requirement of having in place democratically elected Local Government Councils, the State Government provided the necessary financial and logistical requirements to the State Independent Electoral Commission for the conduct of Council elections in the state in 2012.
10. Security: The relative peace enjoyed in the state has been facilitated by the cordial relationship between the state government and security outfits operating in the state and the setting up and equipping of Security Taskforce to deal with specific security challenges.
Recommendations:
From the above discussion it would appear that good governance and better regulation is an ideal which is difficult to achieve in its totality. However, to ensure sustainable human development, actions must be taken to work towards these ideals with the sole aim of making it a reality. It should serve as a mirror through which any government could measure and assess itself. Best practices even though ideals are expected to serve as guideposts and should therefore be applied as much as possible for greater good. Towards this end the following specific suggestions are offered:
1. Tracking Funds/Releases: Releases and allocations to the State Government should be publicized to allow workers and the public to know what revenues are accrued to both state and local governments to enable and empower them to monitor the utilization of such funds.
2. Blocking Leakages: The e-payment system of salaries and pensions adopted by the Adamawa State Government should also extend to local governments as a way of tracking possible salary frauds and other payments. The policy should also be extended to contract payments and all other government transactions to minimize rent seeking and other sharp practices. The system should however be properly monitored as experience has shown that e-payment it is not necessarily free from abuses and sharp practices.
3. Community Monitoring: Community monitoring entails systematic collection of information to assess quality of public services and aims to provide a stock of data that could be used by the community to advocate for improved services and better align them to the needs of the local populace. Accountability and transparency are at the centre of any political system. In this regard the right of every citizen to know what decisions and actions are being implemented in their name should be appreciated. Government officials should therefore be open and honest and be ready to account for their stewardship at all times even long after they might have left office.
4. Capacity Building for Regulatory Bodies and other Functionaries: This should be demand driven – by allowing relevant departments and agencies to decide on what type of training they need based on a needs assessment process. It should also be for all categories of staff including elected officials. Capacity building in terms of skill development and value reorientation is also critical for enhanced performance and should be a continuous process.
5. Monitoring and Evaluation: Performance measurement is a key aspect of public management to improve government efficiency. Success could be measured using specific indicators or targets. Towards this end, the State Budgeting Department should develop targets and indicators to be given to line ministries and departments to ensure that budgets touch the lives of the intended beneficiaries. Similarly, the African Union Peer Review Mechanism model adopted by the Governor’s Forum should be fully implemented and to cover all states as it will go a long way in showcasing best practices so that states could learn from each other and improve their performances. It therefore recommends itself.
6. Enhancing Community Participation: State and Local Government Councils need to listen more and respond more to local needs and involve the community more, in planning, budgeting, monitoring and service delivery. Attention should also be given to women, youth, and the elderly, and people with disabilities.
7. Anti-corruption Crusade: The department of government should liaise with the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to establish Anti-corruption units in all ministries, departments and agencies to help in nipping corruption at the bud.
8. Sanctions and Enforcement: One the greatest challenges of governance is equity and social justice. Laws, rules and regulations are meaningless if they are not obeyed and erring persons appropriately sanctioned. Quite a number of times however, top government officials who flout laws and regulations escape justice. This tendency has encouraged impunity in governance and made the job of the regulators very difficult. Nobody should therefore be allowed to live above the law.
9. Review Public (Civil) Service Rules: They should be reviewed and updated to align them to changes and developments in the recent past and to make them in tune with best practices.
10. Leadership and Political Will: Regulations and oversight functions are only useful if the leadership has the political will to drive them through to the regulators the impetus to do their jobs without let or hindrance and to also lead and live by example.
Conclusion:
Good governance should be participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law. It assures that corruption is minimized, and ensures that the views of minorities are taken into account while the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision-making. It is responsive to the present and future needs of society.
Government policies, regulations and institutions of state should aim to bring these ideals about and their successes measured by the extent to which they are attained. Regulatory policies and institutions must not however be detrimental to the poor and vulnerable in society; while operators should be civil and humane in their approach and fair to all parties in a transaction or dispute.
In the finally analysis, good governance and better regulations should reduce poverty, generate employment, bring development, guaranty peace and stability, equity and social justice among others in addition to the afore mentioned.
On that note, I thank you all for listening and God bless!
REFERNCES
1. Good Governance and its Relationship to Democracy & Economic Development, by Adel M. Abdeelatif, Programme on Governance in the Arab Region (POGAR)/Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Global Forum III on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity, Workshop IV. Democracy, Economic Development, and Culture, Seoul 20-31 May 2003.
2. Democracy, Development and Good Governance: The Inseparable Links, delivered by Professor Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University at the Maiden Annual Democracy and Governance (Kronti ne Akwamu) Lecture of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), British Council, Hall, Accra, Ghana, March 1, 2005.
3. Governance for Sustainable Human Development: A UNDP policy paper UNDP 1997
Hyden Goran & Olowu Dele (ed.), African Perspective on Governance (Africa World Press, 2000)
4. Good Governance in Nigeria: A Study in Political Economy and Donor Support, by Inge Amundsen, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Final Version, 24 August 2010, Commissioned by Norad
5. Majone, Giandomenico, “The Regulatory State and Its Legitimacy Problems”, West European Politics, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1999
6. What is Good governance? Mr. Yap Kioe Sheng Chief, Poverty Reduction Section, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), UN Building, Rajdamnern Nok Ave, Bangkok 10200, Thailand
7. Shabbir Cheema, G. (April, 2004), ‘From Public Administration to Governance: The Paradigm Shift in the link between Government and Citizens.’ Paper presented at the 6th Global Forum on Reinventing Government, with a theme, Towards Participatory and Transparent Governance, 24-27 May, 2005.
8. United Nations Development Programme; Human Development Report 2000: Human Rights and Human Development, New York, 2000.
9. United Nations Development Programme, Governance for Sustainable Human Development: A UNDP Policy Paper, New York, UNDP, 1997; also see United Nations Development Programme, Corruption and Governance, New York, UNDP, 1997.
Wednesday, 19 June 2019
THE IMPERATIVE OF GOOD GOVERNANCE IN ADAMAWA STATE: CHALLENGES & PROSPECTS
THE IMPERATIVE OF GOOD GOVERNANCE IN ADAMAWA STATE: CHALLENGES & PROSPECTS
(Being a Lecture presented at the Maiden Pre-Inaugural Lecture ushering in the Governor-Elect of Adamawa State, Rt. Hon. Ahmadu Umar Fintri,and his Deputy, held at the Conference Hall, Munna Hotel, Yola, on Tuesday, 28th May, 2019, by Joshua T. Abu (Retired Public Servant, Karewa GRA, Yola)
Protocol:
Felicitation:
Let me begin by expressing my profound gratitude to the organizers of this programme for the honour done to me by the invitation to be one of those to deliver this Pre-Inaugural Lecture. I am highly honored and humbled to have been so chosen among many better personalities to do this historic.
Permit me to also use this opportunity to congratulate the Governor-Elect, Rt. Hon. Ahmadu Umar Fintri and his Deputy, Hon. Seth Crowther for their victory at the recently concluded Gubernatorial elections. Their victory at the poll after a keenly contested race, is certainly a show of confidence in them by the electorates. We wish them as successful tenure.
With the election over, and the inauguration coming up by the grace of God tomorrow, the stakes and expectations are very high but considering the pedigree of the Governor-Elect and his Deputy and peoples good will and support, the enormous and imminent challenges ahead which have been well documented by the Transition Committee, are surmountable.
Appeal:
Adamawa (Gongola) State is one of the second generation states created 43 years (1976). Success regimes have come and gone doing their best but not good enough for the state compared to some of its peers created the same.
Ours is a state that 43 years after, we have no stadium (except the long abandoned one along Numan road) for hosting our sports festivals or inauguration as we shall hold tomorrow but for Rabidu Square that has always been left in dilapidated state only periodically renovated for big occasions occasionally. We have no state of the art hospital but instead refer patients to Taraba and Gombe States, states created in 1991 and 1996 respectively, long after ours.
Our tertiary institutions established in the 1970s and 1980s would have looked like glorified secondary schools but for federal government interventions through the TEDFUN; same for our primary and secondary schools but for UBEC intervention. Similarly, while even the third generation states can boast of thousands of houses built by governments, we can only boast of those built in the 1970s and 1980s but for a few built by one or two of the past regimes.
We cannot boast of portable drinking water in the state capital wondering what has been happening to our Water Board, with people depending mainly on personally dug boreholes or water vendors. I can go on and on with this lamentation on virtually all sectors, but there is no need belabouring the issue since all of you know the situation on the ground.
One then is tempted to ask what is wrong with us as leaders and as a people. Views on that might differ but at least we could agree on one basic fact and reality, which is that they have been as a result bad governance and misplaced priorities among others, and hence the imperative for good governance, which is the theme of our discourse this evening.
Adamawa State by all standard, is richly endowed with both natural and human resources. We are blessed with technocrats, intellectuals of high repute, jurists, high ranking military and paramilitary personnel, business tycoons, tested politicians, professionals and many more, whose influence, connections, contacts and endowments when well harnessed, could lift us out of our present predicament and make us compete favorably with any state in the Federation. Unfortunately, this has largely not been the case.
Instead, it has been a sorry story of missed opportunities, arising mainly from in fighting, divide and rule, “bring down syndrome”; ineptitude on the part of some leaders, brazen corruption; lack of cohesion and unity among the political class and the citizenry among others, with their attendant consequences as outlined above.
As result of all these sentiments and tendencies, any step or action taken is often x-rayed within the prism of party sentiment or royalty, ethnicity or religion rather public interest. We have suffered enough! This trend and tendency has had its toll on our progress and development as a state. It is high time we change this negative trend as a government and as a people, so that we could have for once, have a sigh of relief - "Fresh Air" - to borrow the campaign slogan of the Governor-Elect!
To this end, let me use this medium to appeal to our senses and consciences as indigenes of Adamawa State, at national and state levels, and in the diaspora, to burial our differences whether political, ethnic or religious or whatever; and instead, use our appointments, good offices, contacts, connections, influences and endowments for the benefit of our state. We similarly call on the incoming government, to carry everybody along so that we can all have a sense of belonging devoid of the sentiments mentioned above. This should be shown in the way and manner infrastructural developments are distributed, appointments and recruitments are made and other amenities and services. Aim at having an all-inclusive government for the overall benefit of all so that posterity will judge you mercifully and favourably!
Introduction:
The issue of how a particular country or state is governed or should be governed, and the relationship between the state and the citizenry, or how to establish an ideal balance between them in order to achieve a stable political system, has posed a lot of challenge. Ordinarily, as human beings we are born into the world with an opportunity to live better in our various communities. Such anticipated better condition of living for citizens has been largely achieved in developed nations through the mechanism of good governance.
Such countries have in place, well-run educational systems, well-structured industrial sectors, affordable shelter for their citizens, sound national security and relative political stability. They also experience favorable interdependence between growth, poverty reduction and sustainable development, as well as respect for the rule of law, human rights, peace and security among others. In essence, good governance has remained a crucial element of the socio-political system of developed countries of the world.
Here in Nigeria, the story is different. One of the major challenges to the quest for Nigeria’s greatness has been and continues to be good governance. The fact that Nigeria and indeed Adamawa State lags behind in virtually all sectors, in social, economic and political developments, despite all social and economic policies implemented by successive administrations, suggests that such administrations had not optimally delivered the much cherished dividends of good governance.
Nigerians and Adamawa indigenes are worried as to why their leaders seem to find it difficult to address the perennial governance problems despite abundant human and material resources at their disposal.
Many opinions have been expressed to explain this governance challenge which include among others, the emergence of colonial misadventure in Nigeria; corruption and lack of vision among past and present leaders. All of these and many more, have hampered any meaningful effort in the quest for good governance in the State and country at large with the attendant consequences of systemic challenges and decays.
We are currently faced with a myriad of problems, which include but not limited to poverty, corruption, insecurity, unemployment, infrastructural decay, terrorism, kidnapping, ethno-religious crises and many more. These problems could no doubt be attributed to bad governance. It is against this background that we have decided on the choice of topic for this discourse – “Imperative of Good Governance in Adamawa State: Challenges and Prospects”.
Permit me to begin with an overview of what democracy is, to set the tone of this presentation. Democracy may be a familiar word to most of us, but it is a concept still misunderstood and misused as often times even dictators, single-party regimes, and military coup leaders alike, assert popular support by claiming the mantle of democracy. Despite this, the power of the democratic idea has prevailed through a long and turbulent history, while democratic government, despite continuing challenges, continues to evolve and flourish throughout the world.
The term democracy, which is derived from the Greek word “demos”, or people, is defined, simply, as a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people. Even though in some forms, particularly in small communities, democracy can be exercised directly by the people; in large societies, it is by the people through their elected representatives. We could also view it in the memorable phrase of President Abraham Lincoln of America who referred to democracy as “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Furthermore, freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, even though the two are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of practices and procedures that have been molded through a long and often complex and intricate history. Democracy can then be said to be the institutionalization of freedom but people living in a democratic society must ultimately serve as the guardians and custodians of their own freedom.
We can therefore think of democracy as a system of government with four key elements, namely: a political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections; the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life; protection of the human rights of all citizens; and a rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.
The Concept of Government & Good Governance:
"Governance" as a concept is as old as human civilization. It is about processes, and not necessarily about ends. Governance has generally been defined as a system of values, policies, and institutions by which a society manages its economic, social, and political affairs usually through interactions within the state, civil society and the private sector (Shabbir Cheema, April, 2004; UNDP, 1997; UNDP, 2000).
It comprises the mechanisms and processes for citizens and groups to articulate their interests and to work together and mediate their differences, as well as exercise their legal rights and obligations with rules, institutions, and practices that set limits and provide incentives for individuals, organizations and firms.
Governance is believed to have evolved from the need by society to organize its members towards achieving a common purpose - their wellbeing and happiness. The desire of all peoples of the world from time immemorial has been for them to be governed well. This underscores the importance of good governance as an essential foundation for national progress and sustainable development. As the former UN Secretary-General – Kofi Anan rightly pointed out while addressing the Millennium Summit of the General Assembly of the UN in September, 2000: “Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development” (Adel M. Abdeelatif, 2003).
No doubt therefore, good governance is the antidote to many of the myriad of problems and challenges confronting us as a nation and as a state.
The terms "governance" and "good governance" specifically, are increasingly being used in development literature, with bad governance being regarded as one of the root causes of the problems in our societies.
The crisis of development in Africa has been described as a “crisis of governance” by the World Bank (2003). This is rightly so, in view of the fact that African democratic experience has been grappling with a leadership that has been characterized by corruption, authoritarianism, “sit tight syndrome”, and violence, contributing to the present economic and political violence, repression and famine in most of Africa.
Good governance is therefore, synonymous with sound development management while bad governance has lack of accountability and transparency as its main features and is linked to socio-economic performance.
The Concept of Bad Governance:
According to the World Bank (1992), bad governance has many features, among which are failure to make a clear separation between what is public and what is private, hence a tendency to divert public resources for private gain; failure to establish a predictable framework for law and government behavior in a manner that is conducive to development, or arbitrariness in the application of rules and laws; excessive rules, regulations, licensing requirements among others, which impede the functioning of markets and encourage rent-seeking.
It also involves priorities that are inconsistent with development, which often times result in the misallocation of resources and excessively narrow base for, or non-transparencies in decision-making. Bad governance further negatively affects the quality of public goods and services as well as service delivery generally.
When these features occur, they tend to create an environment that is hostile to development. In such circumstances, the authority of governments over their peoples tend to be progressively eroded. This reduces compliance with decisions and regulations. Governments then tend to respond through populist measures or, as in some cases, resort to coercion. Either way, the economic cost tends to be high, including a diversion of resources to internal security and escalating corruption.
Characteristics of Good Governance:
Professor Larry Diamond (2005) identifies several dimensions of good governance which consist among others the following:
1. Capacity: - This refers to the capacity of the state government to function in the service of the public good. Effective functioning requires knowledge of the policies and rules that best serve the public good and that is where the training of government officials in their various professional realms becomes imperative. It requires a professional civil service with a set of norms and structures that promote fidelity to public rules and duties, in part by rewarding those who perform well in their roles. This relates intimately to the second dimension of good governance, which is commitment to the public good.
2. Commitment to the Public Good: This may be generated by dedicated and committed leadership or it may derive from a cultural ethic that appreciates and a structure of institutional incentives that rewards disciplined service to the community or nation at large. In every modern society, however, it must at a minimum, be reinforced by institutions that punish betrayals of the public trust.
3. Transparency: This relates to the openness of government business and conduct to the scrutiny of other state actors and of the public. Transparency requires freedom of information, including an act to ensure that citizens can acquire information about how government makes decisions, conducts business, and spends public funds (fortunately we already have such Act in place tagged: Freedom of Information Act). Needless to say, it requires full openness and competitiveness in public procurement (contracts), but it also requires openness with regard to the personal finances of government officials.
4. Accountability: Transparency is intimately related to accountability. Governing agencies and officials are more likely to be responsible and “good”, when they are answerable for their conduct to the society in general and to other specific institutions that monitor their behavior and can impose sanctions upon them. Effective oversight requires open flows of information, and hence transparency, so that monitors can discover facts and mobilize evidence. This requires a system of government by which different institutions check and hold one another accountable, compelling them to justify their actions. In that way power is constrained, bound not only “by legal constraints but also by the logic of public reasoning” (Andreas Schedler, “Conceptualizing Accountability,” cited in Larry Diamond).
5. The Rule of Law: Governance can only be good when it is restrained by law: when the constitution and laws (including individual rights under them) are widely known, when the law is applied equally to the mighty and the weak; when everyone has reasonable access to justice, and when there are capable, independent authorities to adjudicate and enforce the law in a neutral, predictable, and efficient fashion. This enhances confidence in the system as it is only through the rule of law that individuals can be secure against arbitrary harm from the state or powerful private actors.
6. Participation: Participation by both men and women is a key cornerstone of good governance. Participation could be either direct or through legitimate intermediate institutions or representatives. It is important to point out that representative democracy does not necessarily mean that the concerns of the most vulnerable in society would be taken into consideration in decision making. Participation therefore needs to be informed and organized. This means freedom of association and expression on the one hand and an organized civil society on the other hand.
7. Responsiveness: This means that public policy decisions and implementation represent adequate responses to popular needs and expectations. This is because good governance requires that the fundamental interest and ultimate purpose that defines policies and actions of government must represent adequate response to the genuine and legitimate needs of the people. In other words, institutions and processes of government must as much as possible serve all stakeholders within a reasonable timeframe.
8. Consensus Oriented: There are several actors and as many view points in a given society. Good governance requires mediation of the different interests in society to reach a broad consensus in society on what is in the best interest of the whole community and how this can be achieved. It also requires a broad and long-term perspective on what is needed for sustainable human development and how to achieve the goals of such development. This can only result from an understanding of the historical, cultural and social contexts of a given society or community. That is where consensus building comes in.
9. Effectiveness and Efficiency: Good governance makes possible that adequate value and benefits are derived from government resources that are committed to programmes and projects. In this sense, good governance demands that processes and institutions produce results that meet the needs of society, while making the best use of available resources at their disposal.
10. Equity and Inclusiveness – No sectors of the population, especially those that are more vulnerable or marginalized should be excluded in the provision of services, appointments and other services rendered by the government. All should have a sense of belonging.
Challenges of Governance:
One of the major challenges of governance is the lack of checks and balances (or mechanisms), strong enough to control the autocratic tendencies in government and to hold political actors accountable for their actions.
Furthermore, politicians do not practice ethical politics as most of the time they fall short of the law. The political parties often times do not practice internal democracy with campaigns sometimes very vicious and clumsy; while the people are not well organized to challenge and demand accountability from their leaders.
Corruption has also become so endemic, leading to poor governance, and which in turn hampers socio-political and economic development. The regulatory institutions that should ordinarily deal with some of these challenges are mostly ill equipped, underfunded and are themselves not insulated from corruption and sharp practices. Herein comes the need for good governance.
The Imperative of Good Governance:
Good governance as mentioned earlier, refers to the way and manner a society organizes itself to ensure equality of opportunity and equity (social and economic justice) for all citizens and also promotes people-oriented development (Shabbir Cheema, April, 2004).
It is grounded on certain predicates, which are, that: citizens and their governments do enter into a compact - agreement (social contract) in which the citizens expect returns from their rulers for the enormous power and resources vested in the governments. They expect the government to respond to their material and non-material needs through a systematic process of accountability, transparency, and checks and balances.
Part of this compact involves the creation of a participatory system of democratic governance, bound by peace and security and the rule of law as well as the development of institutions and institutional norms/regulations capable of producing sound economic-macro and micro-policies and management. The ultimate expectations are that this compact will significantly lead to poverty reduction. In a way therefore, good governance is an imperative for development (UNECA, 2001).
Recommendations:
From the above discussion, it would appear that good governance and better regulation is an ideal which is difficult to achieve in its totality. However, to ensure sustainable human development, actions must be taken to work towards these ideals with the sole aim of making it a reality. It should serve as a mirror through which government could measure and assess itself. Best practices even though ideals, are expected to serve as guideposts and should therefore be applied as much as possible for greater good. Towards this end the following specific suggestions are offered:
1. Tracking Funds/Releases: Releases and allocations to the State and Local Governments should be publicized to allow workers and the public to know what revenues are accrued to both the state and local governments to enable and empower them to monitor the utilization of such funds.
2. Blocking Leakages: The e-payment system of salaries and pensions adopted by the Adamawa State Government should also extend to local governments as a way of tracking possible salary frauds and other payments. The policy should equally be extended to contract payments and all other government transactions to minimize rent seeking and other sharp practices. The system should however be properly monitored as experience has shown that e-payment in itself is not necessarily free from abuses and sharp practices.
3. Community Monitoring: Community monitoring entails systematic collection of information to assess quality of public services and aims to provide a stock of data that could be used by the community to advocate for improved services and better align them to the needs of the local populace. Accountability and transparency are at the centre of any political system. In this regard, the right of every citizen to know what decisions and actions are being implemented in their name should be appreciated. Government officials should therefore be open and honest and be ready to account for their stewardship at all times even long after they might have left office.
4. Capacity Building for Regulatory Bodies and other Functionaries: This should be demand driven – by allowing relevant departments and agencies to decide on what type of training they need based on a needs assessment process. It should also be for all categories of staff including elected officials. Capacity building in terms of skill development and value reorientation is also critical for enhanced performance and should be a continuous process.
5. Monitoring and Evaluation: Performance measurement is a key aspect of public management to improve government efficiency. Success could be measured using specific indicators or targets. Towards this end, the State Budgeting Department should develop targets and indicators to be given to line ministries and departments to ensure that budgets touch the lives of the intended beneficiaries. Similarly, the African Union Peer Review Mechanism model adopted by the Governor’s Forum should be fully implemented and to cover all states as it will go a long way in showcasing best practices so that states could learn from each other and improve on their performances. It therefore recommends itself.
6. Enhancing Community Participation: State and Local Government Councils need to listen more and respond more to local needs and involve the community more, in planning, budgeting, monitoring and service delivery. Attention should also be given to women, youth, and the elderly, and people with disabilities. Periodic Town Hall Meetings has been shown to be a very useful medium for engaging with the electorates.
7. Anti-corruption Crusade: The State government should liaise with the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to establish Anti-corruption units in all ministries, departments and agencies to help in nipping corruption at the bud.
Sanctions and Enforcement: One the greatest challenges of governance are equity and social justice. Laws, rules and regulations are meaningless if they are not obeyed and erring persons appropriately sanctioned. Quite a number of times however, top government officials who flout laws and regulations escape justice. This tendency has encouraged impunity in governance and made the job of the regulators very difficult. Nobody should therefore be allowed to live above the law.
8. Review of Public (Civil) Service Rules: They should be reviewed and updated to align them to changes and developments in the recent past and to make them in tune with best practices and relevant to the peculiarities of the state.
Leadership and Political Will:
Regulations and oversight functions are only useful if the leadership has the political will to drive them through and to give regulators the impetus to do their jobs without let or hindrance and to also lead and live by example.
Conclusion:
Good governance should be participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law. It assures that corruption is minimized, and ensures that the views of minorities are taken into account while the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision-making. It is responsive to the present and future needs of society.
Government policies, regulations and institutions of state should aim to bring these ideals about and their successes measured by the extent to which they are attained.
In the finally analysis, good governance and better regulations should reduce poverty, generate employment, bring development, guaranty peace and stability, equity and social justice among others.
On this note, I thank you all for listening and wish the incoming Administration success. God bless you all!
REFERNCES
Good Governance and its Relationship to Democracy & Economic Development, by Adel M. Abdeelatif, Programme on Governance in the Arab Region (POGAR)/Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Global Forum III on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity, Workshop IV. Democracy, Economic Development, and Culture, Seoul 20-31 May 2003.
Democracy, Development and Good Governance: The Inseparable Links, delivered by Professor Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University at the Maiden Annual Democracy and Governance (Kronti ne Akwamu) Lecture of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), British Council, Hall, Accra, Ghana, March 1, 2005.
Governance for Sustainable Human Development: A UNDP policy paper UNDP 1997
Hyden Goran & Olowu Dele (ed.), African Perspective on Governance (Africa World Press, 2000)
Good Governance in Nigeria: A Study in Political Economy and Donor Support, by Inge Amundsen, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Final Version, 24 August 2010, Commissioned by Norad
Majone, Giandomenico, “The Regulatory State and Its Legitimacy Problems”, West European Politics, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1999
What is Good governance? Mr. Yap Kioe Sheng Chief, Poverty Reduction Section, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), UN Building, Rajdamnern Nok Ave, Bangkok 10200, Thailand
Shabbir Cheema, G. (April, 2004), ‘From Public Administration to Governance: The Paradigm Shift in the link between Government and Citizens.’ Paper presented at the 6th Global Forum on Reinventing Government, with a theme, Towards Participatory and Transparent Governance, 24-27 May, 2005.
United Nations Development Programme; Human Development Report 2000: Human Rights and Human Development, New York, 2000.
United Nations Development Programme, Governance for Sustainable Human Development: A UNDP Policy Paper, New York, UNDP, 1997; also see United Nations Development Programme, Corruption and Governance, New York, UNDP, 1997.
(Being a Lecture presented at the Maiden Pre-Inaugural Lecture ushering in the Governor-Elect of Adamawa State, Rt. Hon. Ahmadu Umar Fintri,and his Deputy, held at the Conference Hall, Munna Hotel, Yola, on Tuesday, 28th May, 2019, by Joshua T. Abu (Retired Public Servant, Karewa GRA, Yola)
Protocol:
Felicitation:
Let me begin by expressing my profound gratitude to the organizers of this programme for the honour done to me by the invitation to be one of those to deliver this Pre-Inaugural Lecture. I am highly honored and humbled to have been so chosen among many better personalities to do this historic.
Permit me to also use this opportunity to congratulate the Governor-Elect, Rt. Hon. Ahmadu Umar Fintri and his Deputy, Hon. Seth Crowther for their victory at the recently concluded Gubernatorial elections. Their victory at the poll after a keenly contested race, is certainly a show of confidence in them by the electorates. We wish them as successful tenure.
With the election over, and the inauguration coming up by the grace of God tomorrow, the stakes and expectations are very high but considering the pedigree of the Governor-Elect and his Deputy and peoples good will and support, the enormous and imminent challenges ahead which have been well documented by the Transition Committee, are surmountable.
Appeal:
Adamawa (Gongola) State is one of the second generation states created 43 years (1976). Success regimes have come and gone doing their best but not good enough for the state compared to some of its peers created the same.
Ours is a state that 43 years after, we have no stadium (except the long abandoned one along Numan road) for hosting our sports festivals or inauguration as we shall hold tomorrow but for Rabidu Square that has always been left in dilapidated state only periodically renovated for big occasions occasionally. We have no state of the art hospital but instead refer patients to Taraba and Gombe States, states created in 1991 and 1996 respectively, long after ours.
Our tertiary institutions established in the 1970s and 1980s would have looked like glorified secondary schools but for federal government interventions through the TEDFUN; same for our primary and secondary schools but for UBEC intervention. Similarly, while even the third generation states can boast of thousands of houses built by governments, we can only boast of those built in the 1970s and 1980s but for a few built by one or two of the past regimes.
We cannot boast of portable drinking water in the state capital wondering what has been happening to our Water Board, with people depending mainly on personally dug boreholes or water vendors. I can go on and on with this lamentation on virtually all sectors, but there is no need belabouring the issue since all of you know the situation on the ground.
One then is tempted to ask what is wrong with us as leaders and as a people. Views on that might differ but at least we could agree on one basic fact and reality, which is that they have been as a result bad governance and misplaced priorities among others, and hence the imperative for good governance, which is the theme of our discourse this evening.
Adamawa State by all standard, is richly endowed with both natural and human resources. We are blessed with technocrats, intellectuals of high repute, jurists, high ranking military and paramilitary personnel, business tycoons, tested politicians, professionals and many more, whose influence, connections, contacts and endowments when well harnessed, could lift us out of our present predicament and make us compete favorably with any state in the Federation. Unfortunately, this has largely not been the case.
Instead, it has been a sorry story of missed opportunities, arising mainly from in fighting, divide and rule, “bring down syndrome”; ineptitude on the part of some leaders, brazen corruption; lack of cohesion and unity among the political class and the citizenry among others, with their attendant consequences as outlined above.
As result of all these sentiments and tendencies, any step or action taken is often x-rayed within the prism of party sentiment or royalty, ethnicity or religion rather public interest. We have suffered enough! This trend and tendency has had its toll on our progress and development as a state. It is high time we change this negative trend as a government and as a people, so that we could have for once, have a sigh of relief - "Fresh Air" - to borrow the campaign slogan of the Governor-Elect!
To this end, let me use this medium to appeal to our senses and consciences as indigenes of Adamawa State, at national and state levels, and in the diaspora, to burial our differences whether political, ethnic or religious or whatever; and instead, use our appointments, good offices, contacts, connections, influences and endowments for the benefit of our state. We similarly call on the incoming government, to carry everybody along so that we can all have a sense of belonging devoid of the sentiments mentioned above. This should be shown in the way and manner infrastructural developments are distributed, appointments and recruitments are made and other amenities and services. Aim at having an all-inclusive government for the overall benefit of all so that posterity will judge you mercifully and favourably!
Introduction:
The issue of how a particular country or state is governed or should be governed, and the relationship between the state and the citizenry, or how to establish an ideal balance between them in order to achieve a stable political system, has posed a lot of challenge. Ordinarily, as human beings we are born into the world with an opportunity to live better in our various communities. Such anticipated better condition of living for citizens has been largely achieved in developed nations through the mechanism of good governance.
Such countries have in place, well-run educational systems, well-structured industrial sectors, affordable shelter for their citizens, sound national security and relative political stability. They also experience favorable interdependence between growth, poverty reduction and sustainable development, as well as respect for the rule of law, human rights, peace and security among others. In essence, good governance has remained a crucial element of the socio-political system of developed countries of the world.
Here in Nigeria, the story is different. One of the major challenges to the quest for Nigeria’s greatness has been and continues to be good governance. The fact that Nigeria and indeed Adamawa State lags behind in virtually all sectors, in social, economic and political developments, despite all social and economic policies implemented by successive administrations, suggests that such administrations had not optimally delivered the much cherished dividends of good governance.
Nigerians and Adamawa indigenes are worried as to why their leaders seem to find it difficult to address the perennial governance problems despite abundant human and material resources at their disposal.
Many opinions have been expressed to explain this governance challenge which include among others, the emergence of colonial misadventure in Nigeria; corruption and lack of vision among past and present leaders. All of these and many more, have hampered any meaningful effort in the quest for good governance in the State and country at large with the attendant consequences of systemic challenges and decays.
We are currently faced with a myriad of problems, which include but not limited to poverty, corruption, insecurity, unemployment, infrastructural decay, terrorism, kidnapping, ethno-religious crises and many more. These problems could no doubt be attributed to bad governance. It is against this background that we have decided on the choice of topic for this discourse – “Imperative of Good Governance in Adamawa State: Challenges and Prospects”.
Permit me to begin with an overview of what democracy is, to set the tone of this presentation. Democracy may be a familiar word to most of us, but it is a concept still misunderstood and misused as often times even dictators, single-party regimes, and military coup leaders alike, assert popular support by claiming the mantle of democracy. Despite this, the power of the democratic idea has prevailed through a long and turbulent history, while democratic government, despite continuing challenges, continues to evolve and flourish throughout the world.
The term democracy, which is derived from the Greek word “demos”, or people, is defined, simply, as a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people. Even though in some forms, particularly in small communities, democracy can be exercised directly by the people; in large societies, it is by the people through their elected representatives. We could also view it in the memorable phrase of President Abraham Lincoln of America who referred to democracy as “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
Furthermore, freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, even though the two are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of practices and procedures that have been molded through a long and often complex and intricate history. Democracy can then be said to be the institutionalization of freedom but people living in a democratic society must ultimately serve as the guardians and custodians of their own freedom.
We can therefore think of democracy as a system of government with four key elements, namely: a political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections; the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life; protection of the human rights of all citizens; and a rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.
The Concept of Government & Good Governance:
"Governance" as a concept is as old as human civilization. It is about processes, and not necessarily about ends. Governance has generally been defined as a system of values, policies, and institutions by which a society manages its economic, social, and political affairs usually through interactions within the state, civil society and the private sector (Shabbir Cheema, April, 2004; UNDP, 1997; UNDP, 2000).
It comprises the mechanisms and processes for citizens and groups to articulate their interests and to work together and mediate their differences, as well as exercise their legal rights and obligations with rules, institutions, and practices that set limits and provide incentives for individuals, organizations and firms.
Governance is believed to have evolved from the need by society to organize its members towards achieving a common purpose - their wellbeing and happiness. The desire of all peoples of the world from time immemorial has been for them to be governed well. This underscores the importance of good governance as an essential foundation for national progress and sustainable development. As the former UN Secretary-General – Kofi Anan rightly pointed out while addressing the Millennium Summit of the General Assembly of the UN in September, 2000: “Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development” (Adel M. Abdeelatif, 2003).
No doubt therefore, good governance is the antidote to many of the myriad of problems and challenges confronting us as a nation and as a state.
The terms "governance" and "good governance" specifically, are increasingly being used in development literature, with bad governance being regarded as one of the root causes of the problems in our societies.
The crisis of development in Africa has been described as a “crisis of governance” by the World Bank (2003). This is rightly so, in view of the fact that African democratic experience has been grappling with a leadership that has been characterized by corruption, authoritarianism, “sit tight syndrome”, and violence, contributing to the present economic and political violence, repression and famine in most of Africa.
Good governance is therefore, synonymous with sound development management while bad governance has lack of accountability and transparency as its main features and is linked to socio-economic performance.
The Concept of Bad Governance:
According to the World Bank (1992), bad governance has many features, among which are failure to make a clear separation between what is public and what is private, hence a tendency to divert public resources for private gain; failure to establish a predictable framework for law and government behavior in a manner that is conducive to development, or arbitrariness in the application of rules and laws; excessive rules, regulations, licensing requirements among others, which impede the functioning of markets and encourage rent-seeking.
It also involves priorities that are inconsistent with development, which often times result in the misallocation of resources and excessively narrow base for, or non-transparencies in decision-making. Bad governance further negatively affects the quality of public goods and services as well as service delivery generally.
When these features occur, they tend to create an environment that is hostile to development. In such circumstances, the authority of governments over their peoples tend to be progressively eroded. This reduces compliance with decisions and regulations. Governments then tend to respond through populist measures or, as in some cases, resort to coercion. Either way, the economic cost tends to be high, including a diversion of resources to internal security and escalating corruption.
Characteristics of Good Governance:
Professor Larry Diamond (2005) identifies several dimensions of good governance which consist among others the following:
1. Capacity: - This refers to the capacity of the state government to function in the service of the public good. Effective functioning requires knowledge of the policies and rules that best serve the public good and that is where the training of government officials in their various professional realms becomes imperative. It requires a professional civil service with a set of norms and structures that promote fidelity to public rules and duties, in part by rewarding those who perform well in their roles. This relates intimately to the second dimension of good governance, which is commitment to the public good.
2. Commitment to the Public Good: This may be generated by dedicated and committed leadership or it may derive from a cultural ethic that appreciates and a structure of institutional incentives that rewards disciplined service to the community or nation at large. In every modern society, however, it must at a minimum, be reinforced by institutions that punish betrayals of the public trust.
3. Transparency: This relates to the openness of government business and conduct to the scrutiny of other state actors and of the public. Transparency requires freedom of information, including an act to ensure that citizens can acquire information about how government makes decisions, conducts business, and spends public funds (fortunately we already have such Act in place tagged: Freedom of Information Act). Needless to say, it requires full openness and competitiveness in public procurement (contracts), but it also requires openness with regard to the personal finances of government officials.
4. Accountability: Transparency is intimately related to accountability. Governing agencies and officials are more likely to be responsible and “good”, when they are answerable for their conduct to the society in general and to other specific institutions that monitor their behavior and can impose sanctions upon them. Effective oversight requires open flows of information, and hence transparency, so that monitors can discover facts and mobilize evidence. This requires a system of government by which different institutions check and hold one another accountable, compelling them to justify their actions. In that way power is constrained, bound not only “by legal constraints but also by the logic of public reasoning” (Andreas Schedler, “Conceptualizing Accountability,” cited in Larry Diamond).
5. The Rule of Law: Governance can only be good when it is restrained by law: when the constitution and laws (including individual rights under them) are widely known, when the law is applied equally to the mighty and the weak; when everyone has reasonable access to justice, and when there are capable, independent authorities to adjudicate and enforce the law in a neutral, predictable, and efficient fashion. This enhances confidence in the system as it is only through the rule of law that individuals can be secure against arbitrary harm from the state or powerful private actors.
6. Participation: Participation by both men and women is a key cornerstone of good governance. Participation could be either direct or through legitimate intermediate institutions or representatives. It is important to point out that representative democracy does not necessarily mean that the concerns of the most vulnerable in society would be taken into consideration in decision making. Participation therefore needs to be informed and organized. This means freedom of association and expression on the one hand and an organized civil society on the other hand.
7. Responsiveness: This means that public policy decisions and implementation represent adequate responses to popular needs and expectations. This is because good governance requires that the fundamental interest and ultimate purpose that defines policies and actions of government must represent adequate response to the genuine and legitimate needs of the people. In other words, institutions and processes of government must as much as possible serve all stakeholders within a reasonable timeframe.
8. Consensus Oriented: There are several actors and as many view points in a given society. Good governance requires mediation of the different interests in society to reach a broad consensus in society on what is in the best interest of the whole community and how this can be achieved. It also requires a broad and long-term perspective on what is needed for sustainable human development and how to achieve the goals of such development. This can only result from an understanding of the historical, cultural and social contexts of a given society or community. That is where consensus building comes in.
9. Effectiveness and Efficiency: Good governance makes possible that adequate value and benefits are derived from government resources that are committed to programmes and projects. In this sense, good governance demands that processes and institutions produce results that meet the needs of society, while making the best use of available resources at their disposal.
10. Equity and Inclusiveness – No sectors of the population, especially those that are more vulnerable or marginalized should be excluded in the provision of services, appointments and other services rendered by the government. All should have a sense of belonging.
Challenges of Governance:
One of the major challenges of governance is the lack of checks and balances (or mechanisms), strong enough to control the autocratic tendencies in government and to hold political actors accountable for their actions.
Furthermore, politicians do not practice ethical politics as most of the time they fall short of the law. The political parties often times do not practice internal democracy with campaigns sometimes very vicious and clumsy; while the people are not well organized to challenge and demand accountability from their leaders.
Corruption has also become so endemic, leading to poor governance, and which in turn hampers socio-political and economic development. The regulatory institutions that should ordinarily deal with some of these challenges are mostly ill equipped, underfunded and are themselves not insulated from corruption and sharp practices. Herein comes the need for good governance.
The Imperative of Good Governance:
Good governance as mentioned earlier, refers to the way and manner a society organizes itself to ensure equality of opportunity and equity (social and economic justice) for all citizens and also promotes people-oriented development (Shabbir Cheema, April, 2004).
It is grounded on certain predicates, which are, that: citizens and their governments do enter into a compact - agreement (social contract) in which the citizens expect returns from their rulers for the enormous power and resources vested in the governments. They expect the government to respond to their material and non-material needs through a systematic process of accountability, transparency, and checks and balances.
Part of this compact involves the creation of a participatory system of democratic governance, bound by peace and security and the rule of law as well as the development of institutions and institutional norms/regulations capable of producing sound economic-macro and micro-policies and management. The ultimate expectations are that this compact will significantly lead to poverty reduction. In a way therefore, good governance is an imperative for development (UNECA, 2001).
Recommendations:
From the above discussion, it would appear that good governance and better regulation is an ideal which is difficult to achieve in its totality. However, to ensure sustainable human development, actions must be taken to work towards these ideals with the sole aim of making it a reality. It should serve as a mirror through which government could measure and assess itself. Best practices even though ideals, are expected to serve as guideposts and should therefore be applied as much as possible for greater good. Towards this end the following specific suggestions are offered:
1. Tracking Funds/Releases: Releases and allocations to the State and Local Governments should be publicized to allow workers and the public to know what revenues are accrued to both the state and local governments to enable and empower them to monitor the utilization of such funds.
2. Blocking Leakages: The e-payment system of salaries and pensions adopted by the Adamawa State Government should also extend to local governments as a way of tracking possible salary frauds and other payments. The policy should equally be extended to contract payments and all other government transactions to minimize rent seeking and other sharp practices. The system should however be properly monitored as experience has shown that e-payment in itself is not necessarily free from abuses and sharp practices.
3. Community Monitoring: Community monitoring entails systematic collection of information to assess quality of public services and aims to provide a stock of data that could be used by the community to advocate for improved services and better align them to the needs of the local populace. Accountability and transparency are at the centre of any political system. In this regard, the right of every citizen to know what decisions and actions are being implemented in their name should be appreciated. Government officials should therefore be open and honest and be ready to account for their stewardship at all times even long after they might have left office.
4. Capacity Building for Regulatory Bodies and other Functionaries: This should be demand driven – by allowing relevant departments and agencies to decide on what type of training they need based on a needs assessment process. It should also be for all categories of staff including elected officials. Capacity building in terms of skill development and value reorientation is also critical for enhanced performance and should be a continuous process.
5. Monitoring and Evaluation: Performance measurement is a key aspect of public management to improve government efficiency. Success could be measured using specific indicators or targets. Towards this end, the State Budgeting Department should develop targets and indicators to be given to line ministries and departments to ensure that budgets touch the lives of the intended beneficiaries. Similarly, the African Union Peer Review Mechanism model adopted by the Governor’s Forum should be fully implemented and to cover all states as it will go a long way in showcasing best practices so that states could learn from each other and improve on their performances. It therefore recommends itself.
6. Enhancing Community Participation: State and Local Government Councils need to listen more and respond more to local needs and involve the community more, in planning, budgeting, monitoring and service delivery. Attention should also be given to women, youth, and the elderly, and people with disabilities. Periodic Town Hall Meetings has been shown to be a very useful medium for engaging with the electorates.
7. Anti-corruption Crusade: The State government should liaise with the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to establish Anti-corruption units in all ministries, departments and agencies to help in nipping corruption at the bud.
Sanctions and Enforcement: One the greatest challenges of governance are equity and social justice. Laws, rules and regulations are meaningless if they are not obeyed and erring persons appropriately sanctioned. Quite a number of times however, top government officials who flout laws and regulations escape justice. This tendency has encouraged impunity in governance and made the job of the regulators very difficult. Nobody should therefore be allowed to live above the law.
8. Review of Public (Civil) Service Rules: They should be reviewed and updated to align them to changes and developments in the recent past and to make them in tune with best practices and relevant to the peculiarities of the state.
Leadership and Political Will:
Regulations and oversight functions are only useful if the leadership has the political will to drive them through and to give regulators the impetus to do their jobs without let or hindrance and to also lead and live by example.
Conclusion:
Good governance should be participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law. It assures that corruption is minimized, and ensures that the views of minorities are taken into account while the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision-making. It is responsive to the present and future needs of society.
Government policies, regulations and institutions of state should aim to bring these ideals about and their successes measured by the extent to which they are attained.
In the finally analysis, good governance and better regulations should reduce poverty, generate employment, bring development, guaranty peace and stability, equity and social justice among others.
On this note, I thank you all for listening and wish the incoming Administration success. God bless you all!
REFERNCES
Good Governance and its Relationship to Democracy & Economic Development, by Adel M. Abdeelatif, Programme on Governance in the Arab Region (POGAR)/Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Global Forum III on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity, Workshop IV. Democracy, Economic Development, and Culture, Seoul 20-31 May 2003.
Democracy, Development and Good Governance: The Inseparable Links, delivered by Professor Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University at the Maiden Annual Democracy and Governance (Kronti ne Akwamu) Lecture of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), British Council, Hall, Accra, Ghana, March 1, 2005.
Governance for Sustainable Human Development: A UNDP policy paper UNDP 1997
Hyden Goran & Olowu Dele (ed.), African Perspective on Governance (Africa World Press, 2000)
Good Governance in Nigeria: A Study in Political Economy and Donor Support, by Inge Amundsen, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Final Version, 24 August 2010, Commissioned by Norad
Majone, Giandomenico, “The Regulatory State and Its Legitimacy Problems”, West European Politics, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1999
What is Good governance? Mr. Yap Kioe Sheng Chief, Poverty Reduction Section, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), UN Building, Rajdamnern Nok Ave, Bangkok 10200, Thailand
Shabbir Cheema, G. (April, 2004), ‘From Public Administration to Governance: The Paradigm Shift in the link between Government and Citizens.’ Paper presented at the 6th Global Forum on Reinventing Government, with a theme, Towards Participatory and Transparent Governance, 24-27 May, 2005.
United Nations Development Programme; Human Development Report 2000: Human Rights and Human Development, New York, 2000.
United Nations Development Programme, Governance for Sustainable Human Development: A UNDP Policy Paper, New York, UNDP, 1997; also see United Nations Development Programme, Corruption and Governance, New York, UNDP, 1997.
Wednesday, 16 August 2017
Eradicating Poverty in the Church
ERADICATING POVERTY IN THE CHURCH
(Being a Presentation made by Joshua T. Abu, at the Course organized for Chairmen of Church Councils of Yola Diocese, held on 23-24/3/2017 at the LCCN Yola Diocese Secretariat, Yola)
Texts:
Leviticus 19: 9-10; Proverbs 10:4-5; II Thessalonians 3:6-10; I Timothy 5:8)
Introduction:
Let me begin by thanking the organizers for the invitation given to me to be one of the resource persons at this retreat organized for Church Elders in the Yola Diocese. It is our hope and prayer that we shall have fruitful interactions. We intend to make this presentation in the following format: Introduction; Defining Poverty; Causes of Poverty and Ways through which the Church Can Fight Poverty.
Basic Statistics:
More than one billion people (one in every six) live on less than $1 a day, with nearly half the world's population (2.8 billion) living on less than $2 a day
Every year more than 10 million children die of hunger and preventable diseases, i.e. one in every seven children
800 million people go to bed hungry every day
One third of deaths – some 18 million people a year, or 50,000 per day – are due to poverty-related causes
Challenging Questions:
How do we as Christians "proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ" to those who are living on less than $1 (N300) a day
How do we as Christians "seek and serve Christ in all persons" who die of hunger and preventable diseases?
How do we as Christians "strive for justice and peace" among the 800 million who go to bed hungry every day"
How do we "respect the dignity" of the 18 million people who die in loneliness, despair and poverty every year?
These are challenging questions - that should lead us into considering ways that we as Christians can, through prayer, education, social outreach, community organizing and public advocacy join the global movement to end poverty and hunger.
Definition of Terms:
What and who is the Church? - The church in the context of discussion is neither the building nor the equipment but the people. It is a community of human beings who profess the Faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is simply a community of believers in Jesus Christ who live in a given and specific neighbourhood space. I will leave it at that as it is a familiar territory for all of us.
What is Poverty? - Poverty could be described as a wide range of circumstances associated with need, hardship and lack of resources. It exists where some persons fall short of reasonably defined minimum levels of wellbeing - like access to certain consumption or income levels such as: housing; health and education facilities; certain recognized rights according to standards of human needs (socio-economic conditions of the society).
People can then be said to be in poverty, when they are deprived of income and other resources needed to obtain the minimum/basic conditions of life such as:
reasonable diets
material goods
amenities
standards and services - which enable them to play their roles in society, meet their obligations and participate in the relationships and customs of their society
The UN defines poverty as:
a denial of choices and opportunities
a violation of human dignity
lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society
not having enough to feed and clothe a family
not having a school or clinic to go to
not having the land on which to grow one’s food
not having a job to earn one’s living
not having access to credit
it means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities
it means susceptibility to violence
it often implies living on marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation (UN Statement, June 1998 – signed by the Heads of all UN Agencies - UN Definition of Poverty)
For the purpose of our discussion we shall adopt the 1995 World Poverty Copenhagen Declaration of 1995, that describes absolute poverty as “a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information." The World Bank identifies "extreme poverty" as being people who live on less than $1 a day, and "poverty" as less than $2 a day.
Causes of Poverty:
The Bible classifies the causes of poverty into four different categories:
The first cause of poverty is oppression and fraud (bad leadership). In the Old Testament (Prov. 14:31; 22:7; 28:15) we find that many people were poor because they were oppressed by individuals or governments. Many times, governments established unjust laws or debased the currency - measures that resulted in the exploitation of individuals.
The second cause of poverty is misfortune, persecution, or judgment. In the book of Job, we learn that God allowed Satan to test Job by bringing misfortune upon him. Elsewhere in the Old Testament (Ps.109:16; Isa. 47:9; Lam. 5:3) we read of misfortune or of God's judgment on a disobedient people. When Israel turned from God's laws, God allowed foreign nations to take them into captivity as a judgment for their disobedience.
The third cause of poverty is laziness (Proverbs 10:4), neglect, or gluttony. Proverbs teaches that some people are poor because of improper habits and apathy (Proverbs 10:4-5; 19:15; 20:13; 23:21; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10).
The fourth cause of poverty is the culture of poverty. Proverbs 10:15 says, "The ruin of the poor is their poverty." Poverty breeds poverty, and the cycle is not easily broken. People who grow up in an impoverished culture usually lack the nutrition and the education that would enable them to be successful in the future.
Others are:
History - colonialism and exploitation
War & political instability
National debt - from other nations or international agencies
Discrimination and social inequality - inequality can feed widespread poverty by barring groups with lower social status from accessing the tools and resources to support themselves- inequalities in income distribution and access to productive resources, basic social services, opportunities, markets, and information can cause and exacerbate poverty
Vulnerability to natural disasters - particularly in less wealthy regions that are prone to flood, earthquakes, and other natural disasters pose significant obstacles to poverty eradication.
Ways through which the Church Can Fight Poverty:
Fight spiritual poverty. One of the best places the church can start is by helping people who are spiritually broken. Spiritual poverty is the root cause of all other forms of poverty. Help people understand that they have hope and help them meet and grow in Jesus, and many times, the other pieces will begin to fall into place for them.
Empower the most Vulnerable: The church should target the most vulnerable and worst hit set – the women, children and young people and seek to empower them in all ramifications of education, health, employment, shelter etc. Help them to acquire relevant and marketable skills. Give them a chance to be the best they can and to attain the highest level of education or skills they can. Identify in particular, kids that are stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty and assist them get education and skills.
Be a voice for those that don’t have a voice. Be the voice they need. “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed” (Proverbs 31:8). The church should play advocacy roles to question the underpinning socio-economic and political structures that hinder food production, food security and capacity building of her people. The church must begin to hold governments and other corporate bodies and organizations accountable in the use and distribution of community and national resources and in responsible best practices in corporate governance. It must wage war against every form of oppression including the engagement of child labour for cheap profitability that denies the children the right to education and capacity building and development. In addition, the church should work assiduously against conflicts and wars that turn people to refuges in their own land and destroy lives and properties including the environment.
Let us meet needs, but teach personal responsibility. Instead of just giving away meals, teach on parenting, help someone find a job, ask questions that will help. In short the Church must go beyond turning people to objects of charity in its various intervention programmes in poverty and hunger. The church must evolve a sustainable and transformative livelihood intervention projects targeted at individuals and groups within their community through micro-credit schemes among many small but viable initiatives. As a famous Chinese proverb says: “Give a man a fish, he will hunger again but teach him how to fish, he will never go hungry again.”
Let us empower our congregations to believe in someone else. Often, people don’t believe in themselves enough to get out of a tough situation. Not only do they not believe in themselves – they also do not believe in anyone else. Encourage those you believe to believe in someone else. Let us start by believing in those we lead! Believe in them until they can believe in themselves. Tell them what you see in them. Encourage them and show them the love they may never have had. Then ask them to go and do the same with others in the community!
Partner with those already fighting poverty. There are quite a number of well-established organizations out there that are fighting poverty and doing it well, the church should explore tapping from such organizations.
Let us be aware, so that we could help our church members to be aware. Let us get out of our own little world and look around, then we can help those we lead to do the same. We shall be amazed to see what needs are out there! Let us get out of our houses and comfort zones to open our eyes to the realities in our society. We would become aware, too, then we can help our church become aware of what needs are out there.
Let us help our members discover their vision and passions. Let us not just tell those you lead to look for an organization where they can serve. Help them first discover their life vision and passions. This passion will fuel them in the long run as they serve the community. Identify what they value and help them through (Chad Missildine, © 2017 ChurchLeaders.com).
The church should emulate our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to fulfil the biblical injunction to be in solidarity with the poor, the needy and the hungry including the oppressed. Our faith must be relevant to all the facets of the human life and society as any faith in Christ that is not relevant to the holistic needs of the society is a disaster. Consequently, the church must promote the spirit of brotherhood that cares for each other. Could we for a minute pose and ask these pertinent questions: How many members see their fellow members who come to church without shoes and do something when they have so many pairs of shoes they may never wear in a year? What about giving out some of our many dresses that we may never wear for a long time to fellow members who come to church Sunday after Sunday with the same dress? The church must become a caring community of believers where members share with other members and other people in the community what they lack. The poor must be given access to food, clothing, shelter and job as well as given a voice in the church.
Conclusion:
Let me conclude this presentation by quoting the challenges posed by Bishop Dr. Chibuzo Rapheal Opoko, Secretary of Conference of Methodist Church of Nigeria in Liberia in 2014: “When the church keeps silent to the issues of hunger and poverty, they become partners in crime and demonstrate solidarity with the oppressors and oppressive system and structures. It is pertinent to state that when church members refuse to see the problems and pains of the poor, it then means they are blind; when the church and her members refuses to stand up against unjust structures and policies in whatever guise that exacerbate hunger and poverty, it means they are lame; when the church and her members refuse to speak out against issues of injustice, unjust economic policies and structures that perpetuate hunger and poverty, it means they are dumb. The church must never be silent again” (A Keynote Address Presented at the Opening Session of the 29th General Assembly of the Liberian Council of Churches (LCC), 13th March, 2014).
In closing I wish to leave you with the admonition of Mother Teresa of Calcutta – one of the great healers of modern times: "We try to pray through our work by doing it with Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus. That helps us put our whole heart and soul into doing it. The dying, the crippled, the mentally ill, the unwanted, the unloved – they are Jesus in disguise."
Thank you all for listening!
(Being a Presentation made by Joshua T. Abu, at the Course organized for Chairmen of Church Councils of Yola Diocese, held on 23-24/3/2017 at the LCCN Yola Diocese Secretariat, Yola)
Texts:
Leviticus 19: 9-10; Proverbs 10:4-5; II Thessalonians 3:6-10; I Timothy 5:8)
Introduction:
Let me begin by thanking the organizers for the invitation given to me to be one of the resource persons at this retreat organized for Church Elders in the Yola Diocese. It is our hope and prayer that we shall have fruitful interactions. We intend to make this presentation in the following format: Introduction; Defining Poverty; Causes of Poverty and Ways through which the Church Can Fight Poverty.
Basic Statistics:
More than one billion people (one in every six) live on less than $1 a day, with nearly half the world's population (2.8 billion) living on less than $2 a day
Every year more than 10 million children die of hunger and preventable diseases, i.e. one in every seven children
800 million people go to bed hungry every day
One third of deaths – some 18 million people a year, or 50,000 per day – are due to poverty-related causes
Challenging Questions:
How do we as Christians "proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ" to those who are living on less than $1 (N300) a day
How do we as Christians "seek and serve Christ in all persons" who die of hunger and preventable diseases?
How do we as Christians "strive for justice and peace" among the 800 million who go to bed hungry every day"
How do we "respect the dignity" of the 18 million people who die in loneliness, despair and poverty every year?
These are challenging questions - that should lead us into considering ways that we as Christians can, through prayer, education, social outreach, community organizing and public advocacy join the global movement to end poverty and hunger.
Definition of Terms:
What and who is the Church? - The church in the context of discussion is neither the building nor the equipment but the people. It is a community of human beings who profess the Faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is simply a community of believers in Jesus Christ who live in a given and specific neighbourhood space. I will leave it at that as it is a familiar territory for all of us.
What is Poverty? - Poverty could be described as a wide range of circumstances associated with need, hardship and lack of resources. It exists where some persons fall short of reasonably defined minimum levels of wellbeing - like access to certain consumption or income levels such as: housing; health and education facilities; certain recognized rights according to standards of human needs (socio-economic conditions of the society).
People can then be said to be in poverty, when they are deprived of income and other resources needed to obtain the minimum/basic conditions of life such as:
reasonable diets
material goods
amenities
standards and services - which enable them to play their roles in society, meet their obligations and participate in the relationships and customs of their society
The UN defines poverty as:
a denial of choices and opportunities
a violation of human dignity
lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society
not having enough to feed and clothe a family
not having a school or clinic to go to
not having the land on which to grow one’s food
not having a job to earn one’s living
not having access to credit
it means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities
it means susceptibility to violence
it often implies living on marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation (UN Statement, June 1998 – signed by the Heads of all UN Agencies - UN Definition of Poverty)
For the purpose of our discussion we shall adopt the 1995 World Poverty Copenhagen Declaration of 1995, that describes absolute poverty as “a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information." The World Bank identifies "extreme poverty" as being people who live on less than $1 a day, and "poverty" as less than $2 a day.
Causes of Poverty:
The Bible classifies the causes of poverty into four different categories:
The first cause of poverty is oppression and fraud (bad leadership). In the Old Testament (Prov. 14:31; 22:7; 28:15) we find that many people were poor because they were oppressed by individuals or governments. Many times, governments established unjust laws or debased the currency - measures that resulted in the exploitation of individuals.
The second cause of poverty is misfortune, persecution, or judgment. In the book of Job, we learn that God allowed Satan to test Job by bringing misfortune upon him. Elsewhere in the Old Testament (Ps.109:16; Isa. 47:9; Lam. 5:3) we read of misfortune or of God's judgment on a disobedient people. When Israel turned from God's laws, God allowed foreign nations to take them into captivity as a judgment for their disobedience.
The third cause of poverty is laziness (Proverbs 10:4), neglect, or gluttony. Proverbs teaches that some people are poor because of improper habits and apathy (Proverbs 10:4-5; 19:15; 20:13; 23:21; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10).
The fourth cause of poverty is the culture of poverty. Proverbs 10:15 says, "The ruin of the poor is their poverty." Poverty breeds poverty, and the cycle is not easily broken. People who grow up in an impoverished culture usually lack the nutrition and the education that would enable them to be successful in the future.
Others are:
History - colonialism and exploitation
War & political instability
National debt - from other nations or international agencies
Discrimination and social inequality - inequality can feed widespread poverty by barring groups with lower social status from accessing the tools and resources to support themselves- inequalities in income distribution and access to productive resources, basic social services, opportunities, markets, and information can cause and exacerbate poverty
Vulnerability to natural disasters - particularly in less wealthy regions that are prone to flood, earthquakes, and other natural disasters pose significant obstacles to poverty eradication.
Ways through which the Church Can Fight Poverty:
Fight spiritual poverty. One of the best places the church can start is by helping people who are spiritually broken. Spiritual poverty is the root cause of all other forms of poverty. Help people understand that they have hope and help them meet and grow in Jesus, and many times, the other pieces will begin to fall into place for them.
Empower the most Vulnerable: The church should target the most vulnerable and worst hit set – the women, children and young people and seek to empower them in all ramifications of education, health, employment, shelter etc. Help them to acquire relevant and marketable skills. Give them a chance to be the best they can and to attain the highest level of education or skills they can. Identify in particular, kids that are stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty and assist them get education and skills.
Be a voice for those that don’t have a voice. Be the voice they need. “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed” (Proverbs 31:8). The church should play advocacy roles to question the underpinning socio-economic and political structures that hinder food production, food security and capacity building of her people. The church must begin to hold governments and other corporate bodies and organizations accountable in the use and distribution of community and national resources and in responsible best practices in corporate governance. It must wage war against every form of oppression including the engagement of child labour for cheap profitability that denies the children the right to education and capacity building and development. In addition, the church should work assiduously against conflicts and wars that turn people to refuges in their own land and destroy lives and properties including the environment.
Let us meet needs, but teach personal responsibility. Instead of just giving away meals, teach on parenting, help someone find a job, ask questions that will help. In short the Church must go beyond turning people to objects of charity in its various intervention programmes in poverty and hunger. The church must evolve a sustainable and transformative livelihood intervention projects targeted at individuals and groups within their community through micro-credit schemes among many small but viable initiatives. As a famous Chinese proverb says: “Give a man a fish, he will hunger again but teach him how to fish, he will never go hungry again.”
Let us empower our congregations to believe in someone else. Often, people don’t believe in themselves enough to get out of a tough situation. Not only do they not believe in themselves – they also do not believe in anyone else. Encourage those you believe to believe in someone else. Let us start by believing in those we lead! Believe in them until they can believe in themselves. Tell them what you see in them. Encourage them and show them the love they may never have had. Then ask them to go and do the same with others in the community!
Partner with those already fighting poverty. There are quite a number of well-established organizations out there that are fighting poverty and doing it well, the church should explore tapping from such organizations.
Let us be aware, so that we could help our church members to be aware. Let us get out of our own little world and look around, then we can help those we lead to do the same. We shall be amazed to see what needs are out there! Let us get out of our houses and comfort zones to open our eyes to the realities in our society. We would become aware, too, then we can help our church become aware of what needs are out there.
Let us help our members discover their vision and passions. Let us not just tell those you lead to look for an organization where they can serve. Help them first discover their life vision and passions. This passion will fuel them in the long run as they serve the community. Identify what they value and help them through (Chad Missildine, © 2017 ChurchLeaders.com).
The church should emulate our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to fulfil the biblical injunction to be in solidarity with the poor, the needy and the hungry including the oppressed. Our faith must be relevant to all the facets of the human life and society as any faith in Christ that is not relevant to the holistic needs of the society is a disaster. Consequently, the church must promote the spirit of brotherhood that cares for each other. Could we for a minute pose and ask these pertinent questions: How many members see their fellow members who come to church without shoes and do something when they have so many pairs of shoes they may never wear in a year? What about giving out some of our many dresses that we may never wear for a long time to fellow members who come to church Sunday after Sunday with the same dress? The church must become a caring community of believers where members share with other members and other people in the community what they lack. The poor must be given access to food, clothing, shelter and job as well as given a voice in the church.
Conclusion:
Let me conclude this presentation by quoting the challenges posed by Bishop Dr. Chibuzo Rapheal Opoko, Secretary of Conference of Methodist Church of Nigeria in Liberia in 2014: “When the church keeps silent to the issues of hunger and poverty, they become partners in crime and demonstrate solidarity with the oppressors and oppressive system and structures. It is pertinent to state that when church members refuse to see the problems and pains of the poor, it then means they are blind; when the church and her members refuses to stand up against unjust structures and policies in whatever guise that exacerbate hunger and poverty, it means they are lame; when the church and her members refuse to speak out against issues of injustice, unjust economic policies and structures that perpetuate hunger and poverty, it means they are dumb. The church must never be silent again” (A Keynote Address Presented at the Opening Session of the 29th General Assembly of the Liberian Council of Churches (LCC), 13th March, 2014).
In closing I wish to leave you with the admonition of Mother Teresa of Calcutta – one of the great healers of modern times: "We try to pray through our work by doing it with Jesus, for Jesus, to Jesus. That helps us put our whole heart and soul into doing it. The dying, the crippled, the mentally ill, the unwanted, the unloved – they are Jesus in disguise."
Thank you all for listening!
Wednesday, 18 September 2013
A Gift for a Gift
A GIFT FOR A GIFT (STEWARDSHIP OF TREASURE)
TEXT: Mark 10:17-27 & Timothy 6:17-19
Introduction:
The Rich Young Man’s story is found in all three Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 19:16-22, Mark 10:17-22, and Luke 18:18-23. Each of the writers tells the same story. The Rich Young Man wanted to be sure he would get eternal life so he asked what he could do. He said he had never broken any of the laws Jesus mentioned (Mark 10:19). Jesus lovingly however broke through the young man’s pride with a challenge that brought out his true motives. “Go sell everything you have and give to the poor.” The challenge exposed the barrier that could keep this young man out of the kingdom; his love for money.
Money represented his pride of accomplishment and self-effort. Ironically, his attitude made him unable to keep the first commandment – to let nothing be more important than God (Exodus 20:3 –“You shall have no other gods before me.”). He could not meet the one requirement Jesus gave – to turn his whole heart and life over to God. The Rich Young Man came to Jesus wondering what he could do; but left seeing what he was unable to do. What barriers are keeping you from turning your life over to Christ?
Value of Money (v.21):
What does your money mean to you? Money appears about 2, 000 times in the Bible indicating its criticality. Jesus wanted this young man to sell everything and give his money to the poor even though this does not mean that all believers should sell all their possessions. Most of his followers did not sell everything, although they used their possessions to save others. Instead, this story shows us that we must not let anything we have or desire to keep us from following Jesus.
We must remove all barriers to serving Him fully. If Jesus asked, could you give up your house, car, level of income, position on the ladder promotion? Your reaction to these questions may show your attitude toward money – whether it is your Servant or Master.
Jesus also said that it was very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. This is true because the rich, with most of their basic needs met, often become self-reliant. Wealth tends to make one falsely independent and gives one a sense of false security; and can lead one into hurtful desires and selfishness (1Timothy 6:9-10). When the rich feel empty, they can buy something new to dull the pain that was meant to drive them to God. Their abundance and self-sufficiency become their deficiency. We should appreciate the fact that the person who has everything on earth can still lack what is most important – eternal life.
Disciples’ Reaction (v.26):
The disciples were amazed. Was wealth not a blessing (GIFT) from God - a reward for being good? This misconception is still common today. Let us note that it is not sinful to be rich, neither is it godly to be poor. No one can get into heaven by good honest efforts, neither by earning or paying for it.
If you get there, it is because you TRUST God and HE GET YOU THERE. Although many believers enjoy material prosperity many others live in hardship, poverty and penury (AfriMagic of Monday, 1st July, 2013 on National Quiz Competition – nanny’s daughter and oga madam’s daughter). Wealth is not a sign of faith or of partiality on God’s part.
Money and Wealth as Gift for Gift:
Money or Wealth is a GIFT from God to be used as a GIFT to others in need. Money and possessions or wealth are great and good things when obtained honestly and by earnest work. God has given wealthy Christians resources for ministry that other Christians do not possess.
Money and wealth can be used to help God’s work and the kingdom – to send out missionaries, to support the church, to share relief, and help the poor as Jesus taught us to do. But money and wealth can also become a problem if we are selfish, and want to hoard it, and use it only for ourselves. In fact, Jesus said that money can keep us out of the kingdom. With these resources, come the temptations and opportunities to misuse them.
Today many love their money and their possessions. They store up riches and are selfishly inclined. Others give their tithes, share with the needy, make worthwhile contributions and donations, and honour God in their giving. If we do our giving now in this life, Jesus said we will have treasure in heaven.
1Timothy 6:17-19 (Stewardship of Treasure):
In our Epistle reading of 1Timothy 6:17-19 Paul focuses on the Stewardship of Treasure. Here Paul is teaching about the believer’s stewardship with regards to money. A steward is a manager, not an owner. He is one who manages the property of another.
God is the owner and we are the managers of the various stewardships He has given. This includes the whole of life. We must recognize that all we have belongs to the Lord and has been given to us as trusts from God to invest for His purposes. We need to be willing to share our material possessions for the promotion of the Gospel and to help those in need. Good stewardship stems from recognizing our relationship to Jesus Chris and recognizing our partnership in Christ’s enterprise on earth. In any good partnership, the partners share equally in privileges and responsibilities, the assets and liabilities, and the blessings and as well burdens.
Ephesus was a wealthy city and Ephesian church had probably many wealthy members. Paul advised Timothy to deal with any potential problems by teaching that having riches carries great responsibilities. It also helps the Christians in Ephesus to put the subject of money and wealth in proper perspective. It is sin to love money more than God. However, it is not sin to possess it, rather having it, presents a great opportunity to help God’s people and further advance His kingdom in the world. However, we must not be arrogant or placed our confidence upon the uncertainty of riches but on God who richly supplies Christians with all things to enjoy.
Wealthy Christians should not feel guilty because they are wealthy, particularly if they have become wealthy legitimately, rather they should "enjoy" the benefits of their wealth. They should realise though that “to whom much is given much is demanded and expected.”
Those who have money must be generous, and should not be arrogant just because they have a lot to give. The rich should view their money as God's Gift to accomplish good deeds. Rather than enjoying a reputation for having much money therefore, they should cultivate a reputation for being rich in good deeds. They should also be open-handed, ready and willing to share with others generously what God had given them. By doing so, they would be ensuring that the Lord would reward them for their faithful stewardship when they stood before Him (cf. Matt. 6:19-21; Luke 12:33- 34; 18:22). Moreover in so doing they would experience the fullness of their eternal life (cf. v. 12).
The rich Christian should cultivate the joy that comes from laying up treasure in heaven by investing his or her life and wealth in what will endure forever. Furthermore since everything we have is a gift from God (1Timothy 6:17), we can enjoy everything. The rich should be "ready to share" (v. 18) as the Lord directed. It is possible that God will lead one person to do one thing with his or her money and another person something else (cf. John 21:22).
Conclusion:
They must however be careful not to put their hope in money instead of in the living God for their security. We must note though that even if we do not have material wealth, we can be rich in good deeds. No matter how poor we think we are, we have something to share with someone, and something to use for the furtherance of God’s kingdom here on earth.
Finally, bear in mind that material wealth can bind and restrain us to this earth unless we guard our hearts and set our treasure on God and his everlasting kingdom. Where is your treasure?
TEXT: Mark 10:17-27 & Timothy 6:17-19
Introduction:
The Rich Young Man’s story is found in all three Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 19:16-22, Mark 10:17-22, and Luke 18:18-23. Each of the writers tells the same story. The Rich Young Man wanted to be sure he would get eternal life so he asked what he could do. He said he had never broken any of the laws Jesus mentioned (Mark 10:19). Jesus lovingly however broke through the young man’s pride with a challenge that brought out his true motives. “Go sell everything you have and give to the poor.” The challenge exposed the barrier that could keep this young man out of the kingdom; his love for money.
Money represented his pride of accomplishment and self-effort. Ironically, his attitude made him unable to keep the first commandment – to let nothing be more important than God (Exodus 20:3 –“You shall have no other gods before me.”). He could not meet the one requirement Jesus gave – to turn his whole heart and life over to God. The Rich Young Man came to Jesus wondering what he could do; but left seeing what he was unable to do. What barriers are keeping you from turning your life over to Christ?
Value of Money (v.21):
What does your money mean to you? Money appears about 2, 000 times in the Bible indicating its criticality. Jesus wanted this young man to sell everything and give his money to the poor even though this does not mean that all believers should sell all their possessions. Most of his followers did not sell everything, although they used their possessions to save others. Instead, this story shows us that we must not let anything we have or desire to keep us from following Jesus.
We must remove all barriers to serving Him fully. If Jesus asked, could you give up your house, car, level of income, position on the ladder promotion? Your reaction to these questions may show your attitude toward money – whether it is your Servant or Master.
Jesus also said that it was very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. This is true because the rich, with most of their basic needs met, often become self-reliant. Wealth tends to make one falsely independent and gives one a sense of false security; and can lead one into hurtful desires and selfishness (1Timothy 6:9-10). When the rich feel empty, they can buy something new to dull the pain that was meant to drive them to God. Their abundance and self-sufficiency become their deficiency. We should appreciate the fact that the person who has everything on earth can still lack what is most important – eternal life.
Disciples’ Reaction (v.26):
The disciples were amazed. Was wealth not a blessing (GIFT) from God - a reward for being good? This misconception is still common today. Let us note that it is not sinful to be rich, neither is it godly to be poor. No one can get into heaven by good honest efforts, neither by earning or paying for it.
If you get there, it is because you TRUST God and HE GET YOU THERE. Although many believers enjoy material prosperity many others live in hardship, poverty and penury (AfriMagic of Monday, 1st July, 2013 on National Quiz Competition – nanny’s daughter and oga madam’s daughter). Wealth is not a sign of faith or of partiality on God’s part.
Money and Wealth as Gift for Gift:
Money or Wealth is a GIFT from God to be used as a GIFT to others in need. Money and possessions or wealth are great and good things when obtained honestly and by earnest work. God has given wealthy Christians resources for ministry that other Christians do not possess.
Money and wealth can be used to help God’s work and the kingdom – to send out missionaries, to support the church, to share relief, and help the poor as Jesus taught us to do. But money and wealth can also become a problem if we are selfish, and want to hoard it, and use it only for ourselves. In fact, Jesus said that money can keep us out of the kingdom. With these resources, come the temptations and opportunities to misuse them.
Today many love their money and their possessions. They store up riches and are selfishly inclined. Others give their tithes, share with the needy, make worthwhile contributions and donations, and honour God in their giving. If we do our giving now in this life, Jesus said we will have treasure in heaven.
1Timothy 6:17-19 (Stewardship of Treasure):
In our Epistle reading of 1Timothy 6:17-19 Paul focuses on the Stewardship of Treasure. Here Paul is teaching about the believer’s stewardship with regards to money. A steward is a manager, not an owner. He is one who manages the property of another.
God is the owner and we are the managers of the various stewardships He has given. This includes the whole of life. We must recognize that all we have belongs to the Lord and has been given to us as trusts from God to invest for His purposes. We need to be willing to share our material possessions for the promotion of the Gospel and to help those in need. Good stewardship stems from recognizing our relationship to Jesus Chris and recognizing our partnership in Christ’s enterprise on earth. In any good partnership, the partners share equally in privileges and responsibilities, the assets and liabilities, and the blessings and as well burdens.
Ephesus was a wealthy city and Ephesian church had probably many wealthy members. Paul advised Timothy to deal with any potential problems by teaching that having riches carries great responsibilities. It also helps the Christians in Ephesus to put the subject of money and wealth in proper perspective. It is sin to love money more than God. However, it is not sin to possess it, rather having it, presents a great opportunity to help God’s people and further advance His kingdom in the world. However, we must not be arrogant or placed our confidence upon the uncertainty of riches but on God who richly supplies Christians with all things to enjoy.
Wealthy Christians should not feel guilty because they are wealthy, particularly if they have become wealthy legitimately, rather they should "enjoy" the benefits of their wealth. They should realise though that “to whom much is given much is demanded and expected.”
Those who have money must be generous, and should not be arrogant just because they have a lot to give. The rich should view their money as God's Gift to accomplish good deeds. Rather than enjoying a reputation for having much money therefore, they should cultivate a reputation for being rich in good deeds. They should also be open-handed, ready and willing to share with others generously what God had given them. By doing so, they would be ensuring that the Lord would reward them for their faithful stewardship when they stood before Him (cf. Matt. 6:19-21; Luke 12:33- 34; 18:22). Moreover in so doing they would experience the fullness of their eternal life (cf. v. 12).
The rich Christian should cultivate the joy that comes from laying up treasure in heaven by investing his or her life and wealth in what will endure forever. Furthermore since everything we have is a gift from God (1Timothy 6:17), we can enjoy everything. The rich should be "ready to share" (v. 18) as the Lord directed. It is possible that God will lead one person to do one thing with his or her money and another person something else (cf. John 21:22).
Conclusion:
They must however be careful not to put their hope in money instead of in the living God for their security. We must note though that even if we do not have material wealth, we can be rich in good deeds. No matter how poor we think we are, we have something to share with someone, and something to use for the furtherance of God’s kingdom here on earth.
Finally, bear in mind that material wealth can bind and restrain us to this earth unless we guard our hearts and set our treasure on God and his everlasting kingdom. Where is your treasure?
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