By Dennis Agbo
The Federal government has asked state governments to ensure that they encourage more volunteers in public service to accelerate national development.
The Federal government also asked uniformed volunteer organizations to volunteer for complementary services to step up security apparatus in the country.
Permanent Secretary, Political and Economic Affairs Office, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, OSDF, Mr Andrew Adejo who gave the charge in Enugu during the Federal and State Bi-Annual Consultative Forum on volunteerism, also urged them to reposition the state offices and appoint versatile State Coordinators.
Adejo who was represented by the Director, Nigerian National Volunteer Service, NNVS, Mrs Olusola Dada, regretted that some State NNVS offices have been dormant and non-functional for some time now thereby failing in their duty to feel the pulse and proffer solutions to the identifiable challenges against the task of building a formidable volunteer culture in the country.
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Noting that the consultative forum involving 36 states and FCT State Coordinators was “to discuss progress, updates, strategies, funding, fieldwork experience, information/knowledge sharing and challenges besieging volunteerism, in solving societal challenges,” Adejo charged them to discuss and ensure volunteer activities/programmes in the country were aligned with International and National Development Goal.
He said, “Of course, several governments around the world have exploited their robust and dynamic policy on volunteerism as a positive and significant contributor to their GDP. For instance, in most African countries including Kenya, volunteerism has contributed more than 3.6 per cent of their GDP.
“It is in this respect that the government is using this platform of strategic dialogue with the state and other stakeholders to promote volunteerism as a tool for sustainable development in the country.”
He, therefore, said that in the repositioning of the State NNVS offices steps as “provision of adequate funding for volunteer activities, ensuring the existence of annual work plan, establishing a database of volunteers in the state and generally promoting volunteerism through workshops and conferences,” should be included.
On the role of the volunteer organizations in the present security challenges of the country, the NNVS Director, Dada told newsmen that, “We already have some uniformed volunteer organizations and this is where they come in. They can volunteer their service to complement whatever the security forces are doing.
“We have the Man O War, we have the Peace Corps, so many of them like that, they are also volunteering organizations, this is where they can come in and also play their own role. Many of them have offices in the states, so this is the time they can come in to ensure that we all solve the security challenges we have in the country.”
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