The National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies ( NILDS), Thursday , extended its capacity building exercise to the last tier of government with 2- day training workshop for the 62 elected Councilors across the Six Area Councils of the federal capital territory.
The training workshop which is taking place at hearing room 034 of the House of Representatives wing of the National Assembly is also being attended by clerks of each of the six legislative houses across various Area Councils.
Declaring the Session open, the Director General of NILDS, Professor Abubakar Suleiman, said for Nigeria to experience balanced and sustainable development, there was need for the bulk of the country’s population who live in the rural areas to benefit from dividends of democracy at the grassroots level.
According to him, this would be better achieved if democracy at the local government level is not only entrenched but also strengthened to provide the much needed goods and services for the general wellbeing of the rural populace.
The workshop, he added, would help to develop the human resource skills and experiences needed to drive development agenda at the grassroots.
“The need to ensure checks and balances at the local government level also demand that elected officials such as Councilors , must be properly exposed to their constitutional mandate and international best practices in parliamentary management.
“This will enable them provide quality representation , effective oversight and judicious use of resource at the grassroots level “, he stressed.
The elected Councilors across the 62 wards in the Six Area Councils , were led into the 2- day training by the Chairman of their forum, Hon Abdulkadir Sidi Ali.
