Some National Assembly members say Nigeria’s flawed leadership recruitment process is the reason behind the ineffectiveness of the Zonal Intervention Projects otherwise called constituency Projects.
They spoke at a National dialogue on Constituency Projects and Election campaigns for Legislative positions.
Party primaries have just been concluded and many participants are still bitter.
Allegations fly across all political parties, of undue influence by state Governors and other top ranking party members as well as the use of money to influence delegates.
This National dialogue on zonal intervention programmes is to raise public awareness on the electoral promises made by politicians seeking election to the National Assembly.
Its goal is to set an agenda for eventual winners of the forthcoming parliamentary elections into the 10th National Assembly.
Since 2004 when the ZIP was conceived, trillions of naira have been earmarked for constituency projects which are barely visible.
Budgit Nigeria has been on the trail of these projects across several constituencies and its report is damning
The Guest Speaker says the mode of election campaigns in emerging democracies are largely dependent on developmental status, level of poverty, quality of democracy and the electoral system.
For the lawmakers, Nigeria needs to get its recruitment processes right to enjoy the dividends or constituency projects
The issue of Constituency projects has been a particularly Sour point for members of the National Assembly since its introduction in the Year 2004 with most of them initiated within the period left uncompleted and abandoned while a lot more never got off the ground from the conception stage.
In 2015 when the Buhari administration came on board, there were over 6000 Constituency projects littered over the lenght and Breadth of Nigeria mostly uncompleted, abandoned or never initiated after payment of mobilisation fees to contractors.
The situation has not changed much since and it is hoped that dialogues like this will go a long way in ensuring that the situation changes so that Nigerians can enjoy the dividends of Democracy especially at the grassroots.
