By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
Members of the South Sudan Parliament yesterday visited the Chairman of the Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC, Hon. Christopher Zaka Maikalangu in his office to gain knowledge skills on Nigeria’s Federalism and the Local Government as Vanguard for Integration, while on a study tour of all the six Area Councils in the territory to understudy grassroots governance.
Maikalangu who welcomed the delegates at the AMAC office in Abuja took the Parliamentarians on a tutorials on the working of the Nigerian Federal System.
He said, ” Nigeria AMAC is the heartbeat. AMAC is the symbol of Nigeria’s natural unity and oneness and a typical example of integration and sustainable development.”
According to him , Nigeria operates a federal system of government that comprises the Federal, State and Local Government with a unique administrative system that functions inter- dependently.
Speaking on how AMAC operates the Chairman said,” The foremost Area Council derives it’s powers from the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended which gives various degrees of responsibilities to Local Governments.
“Here in the FCT there are six Area Councils, 62 political Wards, each represented by an elective Councillor who is the political head of several communities under the Ward.”
The AMAC Chief Officer noted that the Area Council provides auxiliary services at the grassroots level including most services recognized by the SDGs.
“We are in charge of provision and management of basic education at the primary school level, provision of basic healthcare services including the construction and stocking of the various ,PHCs across the 12 electoral Wards . Our services are traceable to over 25 villages most of which are not close to the city.”
“Our responsibility is to provide portable water , rural electrification, rural feeder roads , sustainable and subsidizing farming.”
The Sudanese Minister of Federal Affairs and head of the delegation , Hon. Losuba Wongo Ludoru explained that after the South Sudan gained independence in 2011 the country has being operating a Central System of Government, adding that the nation has also gone through long time crisis which cuts across governance, cultural and sundry differences.
Ludoru said that the quest of the country to study Nigeria as a country with true Federal system has informed their visit to AMAC to understudy and to learn how Nigeria has been able to overcome it’s various crisis.
He said, ” My President came up with the initiative of learning from a country like Nigeria on how to operate true Federal system. To learn the challenges that you are going through and how to overcome so that we can establish a system and can align it to the factual realities, the culture and Dynamics of the people of South Sudan.
“My team and members of the Parliament are here to ask some relevant questions that can help us develop a structure of Federal system for South Sudan.”
He disclosed that his team would spend one week to meet all levels of the government who would explain to them how to manage and resolve our crisis.
To understudy how to manage and resolve issues of conflicts and how to accommodate issues of diversity and how to unite the people and give them a certain levels of autonomy to exercise their power in order to achieve certain level of development instead of at the centre all the time, Ludoru stated.
