The International Press Centre (IPC) has trained stakeholders of Alimosho Local Government area on strategic means to engage duty bearers and other government officials to bring about development in the local government.
The training which took place at Iyana Ipaja area of Lagos, saw renowned Journalist Ayo Aloku-Olokun lecture stakeholders on how to device non-confrontational means in resolving issues with their duty bearers and government officials on priority development issues.
Mr. Aluko-Olokun who pointed out that duty bearers are very busy people, said that stakeholders were not ready to invest the required energy needed to engage duty bearers and other government officials.
“The problem I think our people have is that most of them don’t want to put in the work because getting to engage your duty bearer will entail you sacrificing some time because he or she is a busy person, but you must persist on seeing the person, after engaging the person you must be able to do follow up on whatever you have put before that person,” he said.
“But I see that we are always in a hurry, pursuing different things rather than things that are supposed to be of benefits to our own community,” he added.
Lamenting that citizens were not politically optimising social media platforms to make demands on developmental issues, the journalist also tasked stakeholders to take advantage of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to reach out to duty bearers.
On his part, the Project Manager, Biodun Adeleke said the project was initiated to devise non-confrontational ways of resolving issues between duty bearers and their constituents.
“What we are really saying is that it must not be confrontational; there are ways we can make our requests known without making those in power feel that we are fighting with them or you just want to come and disorganise everything,” he said.
Mr. Adeleke had in December explained that the one-year project aims at strengthening existing community structures to meaningfully engage with duty bearers and government officials in order to bring development to the communities.
He said the approach that would be used is advocacies as opposed to agitations, stressing that “instead of continuous agitations without results, we want to engage strategically with the duty bearers and it is expected that issues that are germane to the citizens would be addressed.
Supported by the British Council through funding by the European Union, the one-year project aims to strengthen existing community structures to meaningfully engage with duty bearers and government officials to bring development to the communities.