Varsity Don Stresses Policy Formulation, Implementation for Equity

Funmi Ogundare

A Fulbright Visiting Professor, Nnamdi Azikwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Samuel Zalanga has called on the government to implement a complementary set of factors in development policy formulation and implementation to promote equity in the management of the polity.

He also stressed the need for a strong policy that would focus on agriculture and rural development targeted towards growth in the country.

Zalanga made this known while delivering the diaspora lecture titled ‘Comparative Regional Development: Lessons from South-east Asia for Africa’ at the Samuel Adegboyega University (SAU), Edo State recently.

According to him, policies play an important role in economic growth in spite of inadequate institutions and structural limitations rooted in the cultural, historical and geographical realities of African countries.

“Economic growth is highly enhanced when the structure of the economy allows for small economic actors the freedom to make decisions. There has to be a synergy. For the small actors, economic freedom does not mean minimal state intervention, it means smart state intervention: credit subsidies, subsidy when market prices fall and restricting food import and export.”

The Professor of Sociology, Bethel University, Minnesota, USA dismissed the notion that by merely educating people, the country could be transformed, saying that education is not enough without moral and ethical commitment from people to move the nation forward.

“There is a problem in Nigeria where we think that by merely educating the people, we can transform the country. If you look at the history of the world, it is not enough. Simply because somebody is educated, we do not know how they are going to use it. The way they are going to use their education can be shaped by their moral and ethical commitment.