The Chief Whip of the Osun State House of Assembly, Tunde Olatunji, has charged Nigerians to hold public office holders accountable in order to break the nation’s yoke of under development.
Speaking at a News Point programme of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Osun State Council, Olatunji, representing Ife North state constituency, insisted that accountability in government is not negotiable.
According to him: “It is high time we held our government accountable for Nigeria to grow.”
The lawmaker called on Nigerians to see the fight against insurgents as collective, stressing that, “every Nigerian must join hands with the government to build this nation.”
The lawmaker, who acknowledged efforts of the state governor, Gboyega Oyetola, to end the menace of kidnapping, banditry and other criminal activities, said far-reaching solutions must be sought to overcome the challenges facing Nigeria.
He said: “Special attention must be to paid family units, where children are trained about values and social norms. Family restructuring is a strong factor to consider and that can be a panacea to ending insecurity and economic predicament.
”A large percentage of youths involved in crimes are from broken homes and their bad attitude and characters are substantially linked to poor parenting. The real restructuring towards socio-economic challenges of Nigeria must start from the families.
”I make bold to say that over 80 per cent of young people in crime are either from broken homes or fragmented families. That is a serious factor that has continued to aggravate our national security challenges.”
Olatunji, an ex-banker, advised the Federal Government to control population explosion, which he said was not commensurate with growth in productivity.
According to him, the recent figure that puts Nigeria’s population at over 200 million should be a thing of great concern to all Nigerians, in the absence of advancement in the country’s level of productivity.
