Effective legislation has been described as key impetus to ensuring Sustainable development in any emerging democratic state.
“Enacting right statues therefore becomes imperative to sustain and stabilise policies as well as prevent them from being subjected to incessant policy Summersault which has been the bane of development in Nigeria”.
The Chief Whip of the Osun state House of Assembly, Mr Tunde Olatunji stated this while discussing the topic, Governance in an emerging democracy” at an inaugural symposium organised by the Global Affairs and Sustainable Development Institute GASDI, Osun State University, Osogbo.
Mr Olatunji argued that all the laudable policies initiated by the Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s administration had been codified by the House of Assembly, hence they had become subject of law which could only be altered by any successive adminstration through a long process of amendment and not by fiat as was the practise.
He pointed out that one of the major factors contributing to abandonment of projects and social intervention programmes in Nigeria has been the lack of or inadequate legislative and institutional instruments to support them.
The Assembly Chief Whip commended immediate past governor of the state, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola for his vision which had revolutionalised the face of infrastructure in the state and incorporate all sections of the citizenry through sustainable social net policies such as the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme, School feeding programmes among others.
The legislator who represents Ife North Constituency maintained that the Aregbesola intervention had resulted in Osun being adjudged by the United Nations Development Programme as being one of the state with least indices of unemployment and poverty in Nigeria, while the programmes have also been adopted by the Federal Government.
Earlier, the legislator had joined discussion on the topic of nexus between followership and leadership in Africa where he submitted that a leadership, “is a function of the followership, as a people ordinarily gets the type of leaders they desire”
Mr Olatunji observed that much schorlarly energy had been dissipated on leadership alone, at the expense of followership which is key to any development, while such efforts are equally directed at political Leadership alone.
He maintained that the scourge of poor leadership permeated all areas of human endeavours in Nigeria and not essentially in politics as being erroneously opined in some quarters.
Mr Olatunji called for restoration of African and incorporate same in the leadership building process, pointing out that “every society must stand for something”
