NGF Moves To Improve Capacity Of Governors’ Aides

The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) Secretariat says it is poised to ensure that principal officers of state governors are equipped with the right capacity to deliver good governance.

Mr Myani Bukar, NGF Adviser on Knowledge Management, stated this in an interview with newsmen in Lagos.

He added that the desire of the NGF secretariat was to ensure that the Institute of Governance was strengthened in the 36 states of the federation.

Bukar spoke at the second NGF Governance Share Fair being organised by the forum in collaboration with UK Department for International Development (DFID) for South West states.

He said that the objective of the fair was to bring together state government officials at the operational level to share experiences on how to ensure good governance.

This, he said, was to facilitate the sharing of ideas on areas they had experienced reforms and innovation in governance and not just on development projects.

“This is not about states coming to share how they built bore holes or one development project or the other.

“It is about how they had been able to strengthen institutions that would out last regimes.

“So, issues like pension reform, budgeting and the processes that governments use to deliver development to the people are being discussed,’’ Bukar said.

He said it was necessary for first line public officials surrounding the office of state governors to be technically sound with understanding of the capacity for governance.

This, he added, was the reason why the forum organised the fair, which was being attended by states’ commissioners, permanent secretaries and directors with special focus on governance.

“We are having people coming to talk about sectors and how governance had been displayed in the sectors not just the sector as an isolated issue,’’ Bukar said.

He said that the interaction was necessary because no one was an island unto himself or a repository of how to do every thing.

He said the first edition of the fair held in Enugu in May 2012 for South East states proved to be an avenue for cross fertilisation of ideas and learning from the states.

He said it was not limited to best practices alone as states’ challenges were also discussed with a view to learning from them.

The fair in Enugu, Bukar added, facilitated the networking of commissioners of economic planning amongst state in the region.

According to him, this is contrary to the earlier practice where such commissioners work in isolation even when they are from the same region.

“Before, you have them working in isolated instances; now they have met face to face coming from the same region with similar experiences though uniquely.

“Now they are beginning to talk more to themselves, now there is interaction, there is networking, there is collaboration.

“For us at the NGF this is good because we are able to see much more and monitor how governance is improved which is why we are there,’’ Bukar said.