Summit Charges Govt On Accountability, Community Policing

Stakeholders have called for urgent reforms to strengthen local government accountability, rebuild public trust and adopt community policing as a sustainable response to insecurity.

This was stated at 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 executive director, Hope for the Masses Foundation, Oluwatomisin Adebukola, said the summit was built to confront democratic attrition, which she described as the slow erosion of accountability, transparency and public participation at the grassroots.

Adebukola said despite constitutional mandates on primary education, healthcare, security and rural development, local government remains Nigeria’s least accountable tier, not merely due to lack of capacity but lack of political will.

She said the focus is on community policing, financial autonomy and bridging local governments with traditional institutions, noting that insecurity is the clearest evidence of governance failure at the grassroots.

She cited the May 15, 2026 abduction in Oriire, Oyo State, where teacher Michael Oyedokun was beheaded after 56 days in captivity, and the abduction of 42 schoolchildren in Askira-Uba, Borno State, the same day, as examples of communities without internet, functional policing and basic 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, said trust is the foundation of good governance, accountability its currency, and service its ultimate test.

Daniel represented by former commissioner for Special Duty, Alogun Onadipe said democracy goes beyond elections, noting that while elections confer legitimacy, it is performance that sustains it.