Bashiru Salawu, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) has canvassed reintroduction of development plan culture as part of measures to address socio-economic challenges and direct the course of economic growth and development in the country.
The development plan, when executed, will make it possible for government to provide effective policy framework that will enhance economic growth and development which will have positive impacts on Nigerians and Nigeria, reduce poverty rate and check corruption which the usual practice of budgeting encourages.
Salawu, recommended this while delivering the 233rd Inaugural Lecture of the University of Ilorin entitled “Fixing the Thorns in our Roses: Sociological Imagination for Sustainable Development”, saying that the development plan should have dedicated efforts to address to decreasing disposable income and improve standard of living.
He posited that the society we live in today is getting worse owing to the family earnings in Nigeria that have remained almost flat; the divorce rate has soared; rise in crime rate and insecurity; unprecedented high rate of unemployment; decayed educational system; rural poverty; and dissatisfied workers leading to incessant labour strike in the country.
He added all our institutions had been affected by thorns which had created a lots of social problems and “we must fix it before we can have a sustainable socio -economic development.”
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“Our socio-economic challenges not as individual problems but as social problems which must be solved in order to experience comfortable existence.
“To solve socio- economic problems; we must see society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability.
“The essence of societal institutions, particularly the political and economic institutions in any society is to make a conscious choice regarding the rate and directions of socio-economic growth.
“This is to say that the relative rates at which heavy industry, light industry, agricultural improvement, transport and commerce, reduction in crime rate, elimination of poverty and the likes are to be pursued to become a matter of conscious policy to be piloted in the context of societal institutions”, he added.
The Inaugural lecturer also suggested creation of enabling environment for effective management of public enterprise, saying “instead of scraping or embarking on privatisation of public enterprises that may provide employment for the unemployed youths; the performance of public enterprises can be improved by ensuring that the boards of public enterprises didn’t look like an extension of civil service.
“Similarly, government should ensure that effecient and quality of services needed in the management of public enterprises for any parochial consideration is rendered.”
Other means of fixing the thorns according to him include; formulation of policy towards re-patterning of rural population for development, fix the thorn of negative behaviour of employees in work places for higher productivity and stable working environment among other things.
