NIPSS boss urges legal backing to national development plan
By Sumaila Ogbaje
The Director-General, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Prof. Ayo Omotayo, has called on the Federal Government to give legal backing to its national development plan to ensure implementation.
Omotayo made the call on Thursday in Abuja, at the Annual Conference of the Institute of Strategic Management of Nigeria (ISMN).
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the conference is themed “Resetting National Priorities: The Role of Strategic Management’’.
He said that the developmental challenges being faced by Nigeria stemmed from lack of national priorities on the part of the political and strategic leaders.
He noted that everyone thinking privately and individually would not by themselves, define national priorities because they would define their own personal problems as national priorities.
According to him, there is no guideline for defining what national priorities are in various jobs and positions vis-à-vis the overarching national objective.
“Whenever you have a national development plan, it should be a law. When we sit down and we define these things as our national development plan, it should be a lot unchangeable for the period that you expect the development plan to last.
“But do we have that as a priority to stay on course and say this is what we are going to do until the change comes?
“Everybody comes into office and they personalised national agenda because most of the times, when there is no guiding framework, personal objectives become national priorities,’’ he said.
The director-general added that the current challenges facing Nigeria were leadership, economic inequality, infrastructural deficit, corruption and governance issue as well as security concerns due to unemployment.
He noted that resetting national priorities suggests a profound foray into the recalibration of Nigeria’s national building process.
He added that there was the urgent need for a strategic realignment of the country’s priorities, with particular emphasis on the pivotal role that strategic management could play in the transformation process.
“We face a myriad of challenges ranging from economic disparities, social unions, political complaint, all of which are called nation building process,” he also said.
In his remarks, the President, ISMN, Mr Alex Enebeli, said that there was the need to review the progress of Nigeria and identify where it had failed especially in its agenda and development plans with a view to putting its priorities right.
Enebeli said that the conference was intended to proffer solution and come up with recommendations that would help the nation go through all that it had planned.
He added that there was also the need to know the priorities as a nation, work the priorities to their end, and set development plan for five or 10 or 50 years. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Deborah Coker/Isaac Aregbesola
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