The Director General of the National Orientation Agency, NOA, Lanre Issa-Onilu has decried the takeover of the agency’s responsibilities by other Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs of government.

Issa-Onilu who expressed the concern while addressing the media in Makurdi said the development was adversely affecting the NOA in the discharge of its responsibilities to Nigerians.

He pointed out that the MDAs in usurping the duties of the NOA were also by extension taking away the resources of the agency which was empowered to educate, mobilise and sensitize Nigerians on issues of national concern.

He said “We are facing the challenge that our resources that ought to come to NOA, which has the primary assignment to sensitise Nigerians and enlighten them, is given to all these agencies that have a different mandate.

“Let me take for example, disease control is that of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, but sensitising Nigerians is the work of NOA but the money for disease control and sensitising Nigerians is given to NCDC and it is the same thing all across.

“Take the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for instance, it is the job of INEC to conduct elections but voter education is that of NOA. But the resources for election and that of voters education have been given to INEC.

“And if you look at the last elections, the youths who constitute two-thirds of our population know nothing about our electoral law. Yet there is a budget for voter education and NOA is being accused of not educating Nigerians about the electoral law and other issues around elections. That is part of the challenge that we are working hard to resolve.

“But we are not waiting, we have put these activities under an acronym that we call CLHEEAN. And if you look at it, our job is to clean the communities and Nigeria of all its challenges.

“Going by the acronym, all our activities under the issues of crime are under the letter C. Those of lawlessness are under the letter L. All health-related issues are under the letter H. Our activities under the issues of education are under the first E and that of the environment is under the second E.

“Also, our activities on the issue of all forms of abuse are under the letter A while those of narcotics are under letter N. So by the time you look and unpack each of the letters, you would cover virtually everything that you are talking about in this country. And we have brought everything under CLHEEAN for it to be easier for NOA to implement and for other government agencies that work in any of these letters of the acronym to also be able to interface with us including development partners, who will know where to plug in. That is how we have compartmentalised all our activities. So CLHEEAN will guide our actions and activities subsequently.

“And to deliver on all of these, and to also prove our relevance as an agency that is in charge of communicating government policies, mobilising, enlightening and sensitising Nigerians, we are creating some platforms of engagement, so that it will be easy for us to engage with Nigerians and it will be easy for all government agencies to also use our platforms to engage with Nigerians.

“Because of that, very soon the TV and radio studio we are building at our headquarters will be ready. And by next week we are launching the NOA Mobile App called Mobilizer which has many important features for us to carry out our activities successfully.” (Vanguard)

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