What The Papers Say
Leave Your Predecessors Alone
The 1983 general elections are almost everywhere now mercifully over. The electorate of Kware, Kano, Kaduna, Bendel, Borno, Gongola, Cross River, Anambra and Oyo States, unlike other states, have new state governments in place of the ones that took over from the military governors in 1979.Some of the new governors appear to have started well by quickly putting the campaign rhetorics behind them and attempting to settle down to the business of governing. In one state, the new government has discovered a N2 million debt incurred by its predecessors. True or false, this is a far cry from the campaign rhetoric which earlier had the same predecessor government accumulating a N1 billion debt for the in-coming one.
However, some of the new governors are still dissipating their energies and engaging in useless recriminations about the actions of their predecessors in office. That is not all. Some governors have gone ahead to reverse certain well meant policies initiated by their predecessors out of political expediency. Others, out of deliberate policy, appear set to cancel out or stop all that their predecessors did while in office without manifest regard for public good.
We believe that the spirit of the elections as enshrined in the Constitution is aimed at meaningful development and progress for the society. It is certainly not aimed at un doing everything done by previous governments.
The fact, for instance, is that many public agencies (and even public functionaries too) can be made to perform well, given leadership that is well meaning, purposeful and devoid of greed. Why close down a government-sponsored project just because your predecessor supposedly mismanaged it? The light approach should be to make the project work for the good of all.
And instead of wasting time casting aspersions on defeated opponents, the new governors would do well to pay back the electorate by raising their standards of living. For all we know, no state government in this country can yet boast of adequate supply of water to its residents. Nor do we know of any city that is free from garbage and potholes on the roads. Arrears of salaries of civil servants in most states are yet to be paid, while rents for residential accommodation and prices of essential commodities are still as astronomically high as they were before the elections.
We believe that until the new governors have something better to show than their predecessors in these areas, they should do less talking and more work. As things stand now (amidst the challenges of government before them) it would seem that many of the governors are already finding alibi for anticipated non-performance with their renewed verbiage against the past.
Let the new governors work to justify their mandate instead of chasing the shadows of the past.
— National Concord, Nigeria
Non-Aligned Movement: Strategy Of The Economic Development
The objective formulated by the 1st Non-aligned Summit Conference more than 20 years ago was to put an end to economic inequality inherited from colonialism and imperialism, to narrow the gap in the living standards between industrialised nations and numerous developing countries, to promote the establishment of equitable trade relations with the developing countries. Since then the struggle for the restructuring of international economic relations on a just and equitable footing has become a main guide-line of the activities of the non-aligned movement.Supported by the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist community, the U.N. General Assembly decided way back in 1979 to hold global talks within the UN framework in such vitally important subjects for the developing countries, as power engineering, raw materials, international trade, development, monetary and financial issues.
The USA and other Western powers did not dare decline that proposal. However, they assumed a line toward delaying the proposed global talks. Barring the implementation of that resolution, the West resists the principal demands of Asian, African and Latin American countries: to confirm the unquestionable Sovereignty of nations over their natural resources, to restrict the activities of transnational corporations with a binding "Code of Behaviour", to restructure the mechanism of international trade, to broaden the rights of the developing countries in the monetary and credit operations.
The Summit meeting of seven leading capitalist nations in Williamsburg last May hasn't lived up to the expectations of developing countries either. The meeting failed to respond to the request for a review of acute problems of the developing countries addressed to the leaders of "the seven" personally by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India as chairman of the Non-aligned Movement.
The Non-aligned countries pinned certain hopes on the recent 6th Session of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNC-TAD) in Belgrade.
But the discussion of vital issues of economic and social development at this Session once again demonstrated that imperialist powers are not going to work toward improving the international situation both politically and economically
The Session failed to cope with major problems of improving the international economic life. It nonetheless passed resolutions on aid to least developed countries, on the assistance in transferring technology to the developing countries, on setting up of a general pool of raw materials, the promotion of the economic co-operation with the developing countries and on condemning the use of economic leverage for political pressure in international relations.
— The Echo, Ghana
