Adediji Urges Buhari to Reduce Bureaucracy for Faster National Development
The President-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) has been urged to drastically reduce the time it takes to get government business done for there to be sustainable growth and development in the country.
According to a past President of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, Mr. Bode Adediji, who gave the advice, the nation’s development is being slowed by its bureaucratic processes.
Adediji, who is the Principal Partner of a firm of Estate Surveyors, Valuers Property Consultants, Bode Adediji Partnership, explained that nobody or business consign could get the consent or approval of government without going through needless processes that are usually very lengthy and that this eventually proved to be counter-productive to the nation’s development.
Adediji described bureaucracy as a “debilitating phenomenon hampering the progress of Nigeria,” adding that it was unfortunate that most people who discuss governance, do not seem to emphasis the necessity to wipe off those aspects of constraining bureaucracy in the country.
According to him, unnecessary bureaucracy is one of the many reasons most laudable projects fail in the country, expressing hope that “the incoming President, having being in government before, having achieved the highest position in the Military career and, the Military is noted for quick-footedness, for pursuing goals, and for getting results.
This is because in their own case, they pay with their lives if they make the mistake of carrying out their programmes in a perfunctory manner.
They then make success to save their lives and those of their people if they execute their programmes timeously, meticulously and to the purpose.
So, with such a background, I think Nigeria will have a rebirth.”
On the reduction of bureaucracy, he recommended that “all that needs to be done to curtail or even demolish bureaucracy in Nigeria have been done in other countries. In Rwanda, you can go to their bureau of investment and infrastructure and get any data you want under 10 minutes; you want to renew you passport.
it is within a day; but in Nigeria, even to seek application to have CofO takes three months; to have planning approval in any of the states takes a year. These are man-made issues.”
He said he does not support mass layoff of workers but advocated a global reorientation of thinking and culture in Nigeria.
Youth Employment… The country, he said presently witnesses some key problems like poor electricity power, corruption, mismanagement of the economy, adding that well-meaning Nigerians should urge the incoming president to work tirelessly on the employment of the nation’s youths.
Adediji said, “All the measures put in place in the past from one regime to another, honestly speaking, have failed. Nigerian youth continue to increase in population and the measures being taken are not even adequate to scratch the problem on the surface.
“What I will want Nigerians to do is to regard job creation as an over-arching national agenda and, to the extent that any policy, any programme that does not carry the DNA that can bring something on the table along that front (job creation) should be regarded as a failure.”
The former NIEVS President said he was glad that “a man in the position, with the experience and, of course, frame of mind like Gen. Buhari is coming on board.”
He said solving youth unemployment in the country required radical steps to be taken, and that sacrifices would be made. He explained that the sacrifices would not be made by those in government or public service alone but by all Nigerians, particularly those in the private sector. Data vs reality… Adediji said it was wrong to release statistics of jobs created that did not correspond with what people could see. “If we continue to bandy about data that we created a thousand jobs last year, etc, you are just deceiving Nigerians. The jobs being attributed to all these statistical sources don’t reflect the reality on ground.”
He said there are many factors responsible for youth unemployment in the country, adding “I am sorry to say that many Nigerian youth are unemployable; the skills acquisition, which should be paramount from local level to state level and to federal level, are not in place. Government just talks about them to satisfy all groups. The reality on ground is that we have not created the mechanism, the infrastructure and the dynamics of ensuring that we train our youth continually and permanently.
Also, he wondered why nobody has told Nigerians the percentage of the nation’s GDP that the government is willing to commit to job creation.
The nation, he said has some pre-dispositions that limits an environment that could support job creation, listing some as “our penchant as Nigerians to go for anything and everything imported; our tendency for consuming instead of production.
All these countries that produce and dump their goods here have gone through this era where the leadership and followers think that once you have money from oil or from other natural resources, you can go to sleep and just be spending. If Nigeria were to be a country having a population of just ten million or 20 million people, perhaps having such misguided approach to life may not matter, but not when we have a population of 170 million people and counting.”
He said instead of factories being built on a monthly or yearly basis, factories were being closed down and converted to other social or religious purposes.
Nigeria, he said need to focus on job creation for the youth, saying “I pray a day will not come when we will have a situation on our hands that will be difficult to control. One cannot under any guise defend the rascality and violence going on now in South Africa but the truth of the matter is that if majority of our educated and uneducated youth have no jobs, have no money to feed their families, then things you consider rational thinking become a luxury.
We pray that does not happen in Nigeria and that is why the new government must take job creation to their front-burner agenda.”
According to Adediji, they should not rely on statistics that does not reflect anything on ground, describing such data as dubious.