The Upright for Nigeria Campaign Continue to record Success as people from different part of Kaduna State converge in Arewa House for the government and citizens dialogue on service delivery .
The gathering which was organized by Aid Foundation is a collaboration with the UK AID, ActionAid and other international non-governmental organizations to gauge the level of compliance with service providers for the Strengthening Citizens Resistance Against Prevalence of Corruption (SCRAP-C) in Nigeria.
The Executive Director of Aid Foundation who was represented by the program Officer, Mrs Chinazo Anthonia Umenwobi said in an opening remarks that the town hall meeting is about citizenship and service delivery, she further stated that it is a platform were citizens interact with people in authority ,engaging stake holders and holding them accountable for services they render.
While she welcome everyone she stress that the town hall meeting was a quarterly event, and from the last quarter few persons were selected from each of the wards in Kaduna state and they are mainly to gather information about corrupt practice at their ward level, resolve conflict between citizens and forward information about corruption to the right agency and they are in turn to bring up such information to the town hall meeting for follow up.
The following persons were present at the town hall meeting ; Mr Ibrahim Ahmed DPO malari division representing the Nigeria Police Force, Mr Galadima Moses for the ICPC, Abubakar Ibrahim for Kaduna Electricity, Mr M.A Jibril for KASTLEA , HOD civil defence corps .
The town hall meeting didn’t end without questions coming in for the different agency to address.
Mr Umar Sanda Bello ,from nasarawa complained about how his community is facing insecurity and the only personnel’s on ground are 90 percent women who can’t do anything to defend them when ever the community comes under attack.
Mallam Yusuf Mohammed ,spoke and queried how it is that communities will buy transformer for them selves and still pay bill to Kaduna power holding company, if the community have to get polls and even buy transformer what is PHCN doing with the bills they pay ? He asked.
On whistle blowing policy he demanded to know from the ICPC what is the modalities for reporting cases of corruption and why it is that the whistle blower sometimes end up been the victim.
Rev Yohannah also spoke about his experience when his wife was kidnapped sometimes ago and when he ran to the police the response wasn’t encouraging but he thanked God that through prayers his wife was rescued
He went further to also condemn estimated billing .
Reacting to some of the issues , Dpo Ahmed intimated that the Nigeria police force is been under founded and they also lack man power as he said 350,000 police men is not enough to police a population of over 200million Nigerian’s
He solicited for the citizens to add their voices to the debate of community policing as that will help .
Reaction to the issue of Kaduna electricity, Abubakar Ibrahim insisted that they only transmit but don’t generate and as such they can only do little ,about paying a flat rate of #1800 for those without metre he dismissed it saying it is not a law and customers are charged based on their tariff plan ,he also accepted the fact for the need for them to improve and some of the issues raised will be looked into.
Reacting to the issue of corruption reporting , Moses Galadima who represented the ICPC said while they encourage whistle blowing citizens should be careful not to be found wanting in giving out wrong information at that attracts a jail term of 10years.
A lot of issues were also addressed but at the end both the representatives of the services provider’s and the citizens present in the town hall meeting hailed the Upright for Nigeria campaign for their stand in the fight against corruption .
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