The African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development (Centre LSD) is currently pushing to promote and mainstream government accountability across Nigeria through its initiative for implementing open government partnerships with civil society organizations.
Open government partnerships is an international multi-stakeholder initiative, which was launched in September 2011 to provide a worldwide platform for local policy reform advocates to hold their governments to account and make them more open and responsive to citizens.
Celestine Okeke, lead partner at Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Advocacy and Support Initiative, said the agenda is imperative for the country, considering the fact that Nigeria does not have a clearly defined national development plan, which greatly entrenches poverty and largely hinders the economic prosperity of its citizens.
According to him, most government agencies do not work based on any established plan for growth but hurriedly decide on what to do in a particular year just because there have been funds allocated to them and must be spent.
The Nigerian government made several commitments during an anti-corruption summit held in London earlier in May, but much remains to be seen.
“Nigeria commits to deploying public-private information sharing partnerships to bring together government, law enforcement, regulators and the financial sector to detect, prevent and disrupt money laundering linked to corruption,” the federal government said in a statement issued after the summit.
The statement, which was personally signed by President Muhammadu Buhari, further committed that “the federal government will work together with interested countries to share information between respective public-private partnerships to ensure the most effective response to international money laundering.”
During an exclusive chat with Quick News Africa, Edetaen Ojo, executive director, Media Rights Agenda, expressed the need for the Nigerian government to always make public its essential budget documents and also in a timely manner.
He said his organization was working hand in hand with the government to establish rules that require transparency and public disclosure of assets from elected and senior public officials.
This, Ojo noted, will be achieved with voluntary and deep government participation in various agenda towards openness in governance through its ministries, departments and agencies.
