This week, the ebullient governor of Lagos State, Akinwumi Ambode, inaugurated 14- member Inter Religious Council in the 20 local governments and 37 local council development areas to among other things further inter religious harmony, nip in the bud acrimonious tension between one faith and the other, and to construct architecture of peace in their respective areas.
As a newspaper, we commend the government for the initiatives, but we are quick to point out that the move was a wrong step in the wrong direction, and in the opinion of this newspaper, it is akin to the much ballyhooed Ministry of Happiness created by the comic governor of Imo State, Owelle Rochas Okorochas.
First, it would seem the Ambode government did not think through the initiative before going town with it, given the misdirected efforts that went into it when more pressing issues of interest to Lagosians are begging for attention.
This newspaper will want an interrogation of the process. Do we have challenges religious in nature in Lagos State? If any, of what magnitude? In the entire Southwest, right from time immemorial, religious harmony is one of the fine points social scientists have always attributed to the Yoruba race, and a hallmark of the sophistication of their widely respected civilization and world view. Then why instituting a council for what is clearly not a challenge?
We see this development as nothing but jobs for the boys, an initiative that may have been clouded in political motives.
What should have engaged the minds of the Lagos policy makers is the underpinnings of religious strife, what feeds it, and how does the foot soldiers emerge?
Clearly , most religious strife all over the world are prosecuted by an army of jobless youths, who are economically dis- empowered and dispossessed.
As at today, Lagos has a teeming population of 22 millions, and latest statistics have revealed that of the lot, about 40 percent are unemployed. What the Lagos Government ought to have done was not to look out for the shadow but the substance, which precisely for us, is the need for Ambode administration to have created enough enabling environment and incentives for these army of unemployed youths to get economically engaged, as a way of luring them away from mistaken beliefs , being proxies to criminal activities of others, and from being footsoldiers to religious quasi religious bigotry and demagoguery.
The widening gap between the rich and poor keeps expanding , yet ,there are no social and economic safety nets, yet population keeps going up. It is this cesspool that the Ambode administration should have channelled efforts at reducing inequalities.
What he has done amounts yo increasing the wage bill of the state, when many progressive and growing economies around the world are moving away from bloated, big government to giving incentives to private sector to thrive.
About 798 people are members of the Inter Religious Council created in the state, and there is no way they will not draw from the state’s finances to function effectively.
There is need for our leaders to let policy decisions match realities on ground, in the current instance, this has not been so. If the administration had inaugurated a committee in each local government on how to create economic inclusion for the teeming army of unemployed and dispossessed in the state, that would have made more sense and resonates well with the people. Policy is about the people, their lives and how to raise the standards of their living.
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