The Director-General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr Kashifu Abdullahi, has called on civil societies and youths to support President Bola Tinubu to make Nigeria greater among the Committee of Nations.
Abdullahi made the call during a plenary session at the 1st Civil Society Summit on Civil Democracy and National Development in Abuja on Thursday.
The Summit with the theme, “Civil Society, Democracy and Governance Reforms: Building Sustainable Partnership and National Development” was organised by National Civil Society Council of Nigeria.
According to the NITDA boss, there is need to build a collective ambition, and collective leadership to achieve that ambition, stressing that everyone should have a role to play.
“To reimagine the social contract between government and the civil society, we all need to agree on what is good for Nigeria. We should have clarity, build trust engage; without this, it would be difficult to have progress.
“We came from the past where government and citizens were not engaging. We had a bad marriage characterised by blame game.
“But today, we have a government that engage with clarity, because on assuming office, Tinubu made it clear that economy diversification is paramount and best way to go. He identified eight areas to achieve that.
“You need to support Tinubu to achieve this. Mr President has a vision for Nigeria. We should all work together to help achieve that vision.
“Mr President is also talking about digitalisation of agriculture, using AI to boost our healthcare, education and others; all these is to to shape the future of the country.
“President Tinubu wants to make Nigeria a $1 trillion dollar economy. As civil society, you need to ask how you can help the government. We need to work together to achieve that,”Abdullahi said.
Also speaking, a former senator (Kaduna Central) Shehu sani, said while citizens finds it easy to criticise the president and legislators, they don’t do same to governors and local council Chairmen.
“There are case where people are arrested and sent to prison, because, they criticised a governor.
“As civil society, you need the protection of the law; try and align yourself with legal organisations to provide cover for you when the need arises.
“In Kaduna, in the past, we had situation where journalists were arrested and sent to prison for writing stories. Even their colleagues were afraid to champion their course, hence the need to have a lawyer, “Sani said.
Also speaking during the plenary, Prof Tunji Asaolu, said civil society should use dialogue and not confrontation in addressing issues.
“In whatever you are doing, if you are not adding value, then you don’t belong to that group.
“We don’t need to pull down the government. What we need to do is to provide an adversary opinion on certain issues, but some of us allow even external issues to control us.
“If I offend you, there should be a way that we need to meet and address it, and not to carry ourselves to report to foreign embassies, to those people we are trying to free ourselves from.
“This Summit should come out with a reform that can give us voice. We need a space in government; if there is Ministry of Youths Development, Women Affairs, Humanitarian and others, what about the citizen/civil society?.
“The civil society represents the citizens and that is why the civil society needs a space in government to ensure a cordial relationship between the government and the civil society, “Asaolu said.
Similarly, another panelist, Mr Godswill Edward, said one of the challenges we have in Nigeria is the lack of will to collectively take a decision.
“We operate a young democracy, but we need to hold our leaders accountable, and the greatest way to achieve that is the unity of purpose. It is important to come together to sit and discuss.
“There must be constructive criticism, and at the same time proffering solutions to those challenges. There should be parley and boldness in addressing issue.
“Also, many times, we demarket our nation by how we confront issues. We must be able to find amicable background in ensuring that issues are resolve while we make or point straight and direct,”Edward said.
Mr Kenneth Okwonkwo also admonished the youths to understand that where their rights stop is where another person’s begin.
He said that citizens should not come out publicly to lay allegations if they don’t have a concrete evidence.
According to him, judges in the court of law pass judgement base on evidence before them and not the emotions, sympathy or perceptions of the true or otherwise of an individual.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Summit brought together civil societies from different parts of the country. (NAN)