Mr Gwaman Datong, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Plateau,
April 5, 2018
Mr Gwaman Datong, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Plateau, says restructuring of the country’s public system will improve service delivery for rapid national development.
He made the observation on Thursday while speaking with newsmen in Abuja.
“A re-organisation of the process of the state will assist very well; and it is not just an issue of re-organisation, it is an issue of using appropriate technology.
“The technology will assist in maintaining the process because if you allow people to just maintain the process like that, they will circumvent it.
“So, when you do a process you also need technology that will give rules and responsibilities to people.
“Meaning that if there are five steps to go through to achieve a certain output, the five steps must be taken by everybody’’.
Datong added that such endeavour would also stimulate systematic development in all parts of the country without recourse to political, ethnic or religious sentiments.
He advised the upcoming political leaders to cultivate attributes of good governance for political development of the country, observing that most intending political leaders were operating without a particular model for what they desired.
Datong, who is seeking a ticket to contest governorship election in Plateau in 2019, said his main focus would be to build a solid foundation for the state through visionary leadership.
He said: “We want to take holistic approach to develop the state; am looking at roads for instance as an output, if we are doing roads, we will consider of what benefits are they to the common man.
“We will also consider how building roads will affect infants’ mortality
or level of employment in the state.
“These are the things I will be looking at; that is why I said I will be using holistic approach so that at the end of my tenure, I will have built the foundation where the state will grow’’.
Datong, however, said that he was seeking for only a term in office if elected, promising that his tenure would surely mark the beginning of the development of good governance in the state.
“I will serve for single four-year tenure because I don’t want to be there for too long; I want to build strong technical skills for my state.
“It is not the usual technical skill where you call young people and train them for two weeks and give them N20, 000 each to settle their businesses that am talking about.
“What we are going to do is to train people for specific industry which we are going to use; for example if we want to train tailors, we will make sure we have a garment company somewhere that will make use of them.
“They will be producing cloths for Nigeria as a whole,’’ he said.
He also said he had been in constant touch with other stakeholders in politics in the state to harmonise some of his ideas for proper advice.
“I believe governance is all about decision making; how good and participatory are they and how useful are they to the electorate, bearing in mind that people’s opinions must count’’, he said.
