By ONOGWU MUHAMMED
WHEN national, state, or local governments make a concerted effort to solicit input from citizens and provide services to all of their constituents equally, they sow the seeds of stability and growth. When this is done within a framework of political and legal accountability, citizens increasingly trust state institutions to support and to treat all of them in an even-handed manner.
Governance is inclusive when it effectively serves and engages all people, takes into account all facets of personal identity and when institutions, policies, processes and services are, accountable and responsive to all members of society.
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Fostering governance that is inclusive is essential to advancing democratic values, including peaceful pluralism and respect for diversity, religion, human rights and equality before the law.
Governance affects how states manage complex challenges like inequality. Fostering governance that is more inclusive helps to ensure that responses to challenges at all levels leave no one behind. A focus on inclusion enables countries and states to unlock the potential of their diverse populations. This, no doubt, is exactly what Governor Yahaya Bello is doing in Kogi State. The governor is fiercely transforming into an ideal radical leader with rare transformational attributes.
First, he brokered what would have snowballed into a civil war when sections of the country took up needless arsenals against themselves. With no one to speak in leadership, he rose to the podium calming nerves and dousing tension. Last week, he exhibited another ‘first’ by commissioning a Worship Centre for the Christian community in Kogi State Government House, Lokoja. This would have been a normal development but for the reality that the man in reference is not a Christian but a Muslim! What would have prompted this rarity?
Answer to this wouldn’t be far-fetched, given the governor’s strides in responding to national issues. A case in point was when…
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