Don Decries Lack Of Basic Infrastructure

A university teacher, Prof.
Aloysius Okolie, said that lack of basic infrastructure was undermining all the sectors of the economy.
Okolie, a Professor of Political Science, said at the 2014 Democracy Day anniversary lecture in Abakaliki that lack of infrastructure was also an obstacle or hindrance to “feasible economic empowerment programmes”.
In the paper titled “Critical Infrastructure as a Foundation for Socio-Economic Transformation: The Ebonyi Experience,” Okolie said that development should be local content driven.
He said inadequate infrastructure perpetuated poverty, unemployment, poor health and high mortality.
“As a critical residue, the level of infrastructural transmutation contributes significantly to influencing the pattern and intensity of societal transmogrification. “The development of any nation’s infrastructure remains the catalyst for nation building in economic terms,” he said.
According to the professor, Nigeria has an unenviable record of critical infrastructural deficit due to incompetence in political leadership.
Also speaking, Gov. Martin Elechi of Ebonyi explained that development involved social values, the environment, aspirations and mind set which were the ingredients of policy formulation.
Elechi described development as a double-edged sword that promoted positive and negative social vices.

L-R: Executives of Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria, National Vice President, Alhaji Tojosi Raheem, Assistant Secretary, Abdulsalam Yakubu, President, Dr Godswill Okara and National Secretary, Mr Robert Ashi, during the associations’ National Executive meeting in Enugu last Sunday. Photo: NAN