ALGON pushes for better grassroots governance

The Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), under the present leadership of Kolade Alabi, has embarked on a gainful mission aimed at linking the 774 local government areas to massive economic development leveraging on President Muhammadu Buhari’s recently signed African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and the high-end bilateral relations signed between the Government of Morocco and Nigeria.

Alabi, who paid a courtesy visit to the Moroccan Ambassador to Nigeria, Moha Du Ali Tagma, said ALGON would leverage on the AU and AfCFTA, alongside other ECOWAS treaties to explore gains that would benefit Nigeria’s rural populace, insisting that government needed to be supported and encouraged through the intervention to achieve its lofty programmes, especially one that would help rural communities.

He further said Morocco’s agricultural profile remained one of the best in Africa and needed to be studied through a detailed peer review mechanism that would guarantee massive development in Nigeria, and expressed happiness at the country’s statistics in which its GDP increased to $118.495bn in 2018, $279.326bn (PPP and ranked 58th in the world in 2018).

The ALGON boss gave kudos to the country in its main industries which include phosphate, rock mining and processing, high tech, food processing, leather, textile, construction, tourism, automobile manufacturing, and stated that Nigeria had similarities with Morocco in terms of ease of doing business.

In his response, Amb. Tagma expressed appreciation at the visit of the ALGON delegation and expressed confidence in its resolve to build a mutually beneficial relationship with ALGON, noting that despite its main export partners like Spain, France, Italy, China, Germany, Turkey, United States, it would like to have Nigeria, its big brother, flourish together in business as trading partners.