Summit Charges Govt On Accountability, Community Policing

Stakeholders have referred to as for pressing reforms to strengthen native authorities accountability, rebuild public belief and undertake group policing as a sustainable response to insecurity.

This was said on the 2026 Nigeria Grassroots Governance Summit and Awards (NIGGSA) held in Lagos, with the theme “Community Policing, Building Trust at the Grassroots and Bridging the Gap Between Local Governments and Traditional Institutions.”

Convener of NIGGSA and govt director, Hope for the Masses Foundation, Oluwatomisin Adebukola, stated the summit was constructed to confront democratic attrition, which she described because the sluggish erosion of accountability, transparency and public participation on the grassroots.

Adebukola stated regardless of constitutional mandates on main schooling, healthcare, safety and rural growth, native authorities stays Nigeria’s least accountable tier, not merely as a consequence of lack of capability however lack of political will.

She stated the main target is on group policing, monetary autonomy and bridging native governments with conventional establishments, noting that insecurity is the clearest proof of governance failure on the grassroots.

She cited the May 15, 2026 abduction in Oriire, Oyo State, the place instructor Michael Oyedokun was beheaded after 56 days in captivity, and the kidnapping of 42 schoolchildren in Askira-Uba, Borno State, the identical day, as examples of communities with out web, useful policing and fundamental governance.

In his paper titled ‘Building Trust Between Government and the People’, Senator Gbenga Daniel, former Governor of Ogun State and Senator representing Ogun East, stated belief is the muse of fine governance, accountability its foreign money, and repair its final check.

Daniel represented by former commissioner for Special Duty, Alogun Onadipe stated democracy goes past elections, noting that whereas elections confer legitimacy, it’s efficiency that sustains it.