The circulation of ‘obnoxious bills’ in the Nigerian national assembly has been condemned following a training workshop for Open Alliance members on the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in Nigeria, organized in Abuja by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD).
This was contained in a joint communiqué issued at the end of the workshop and signed by Monday Osasah of Centre LSD, Edetaen Ojo from the civil society and co chairman, OGP NSC; Stanley Achonu, coordinator, Open Alliance; Haruna Abdulahi of the OGP national secretariat, and Clement Ekeoba of Clape Consulting.
The 2-day workshop held from August 24 to 25, 2017 was attended by about 90 participants drawn from the civil society, including media, professional groups, and the private sector.
“The forum frowned at some obnoxious bills presently is in the national assembly that constitute a deliberate violation of the guarantees of freedom of thought, opinion and expression, and freedom of association as provided in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, ”the communiqué read in part.
Chief among such bills is the “NGO Regulation Bill” sponsored by deputy majority leader of the house of representatives that has already passed first and second readings in the House and now at the committee stage.
Government agencies from the ministry of justice, the National Orientation Agency, and the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative also participated in the training workshop.
They noted that the fulfillment of government’s obligation towards the implementation of the OGP National Action Plan remains one of the challenges that could hinder the achievement of OGP’s lofty objectives.
The training had various presentations followed by interactive sessions, with participants making a number of recommendations at the close of the workshop, insisting that civil society needs to come up with creative ways to prompt government to walk their talk.
Also, according to them, OGP is perhaps one of the very few initiatives where government and civil society are joint partners, with a National Steering Committee that is co-Chaired and equally represented in terms of membership by civil society and government.
Members were admonished to be wary of subtle moves by government to weaken the unity/stance of the civil society group on the steering committee by urging them to disassociate themselves from earlier positions jointly taken.
Some benefits that could accrue to sub-national (state) governments for signing on to OGP were highlighted to include efficient use of development resources, improved government integrity, opportunity for foreign direct investment, improved public finance management, more open and accountable governance, among others.
They recommended that civil society has to hold government accountable for every commitment it has made to the OGP process by sitting with government to take action to implement the NAP on the OGP.
Civil society players were also urged to change their orientation and mindset and try a different approach where government and civil society will sit together to forge a common partnership to transform Nigeria.
While calling on government and its agencies to live up to their bidding by keeping to the letter and spirit of the FOI Act, citizens and civil society were admonished to harness other sources of information and possibly exhaust all available windows within the ambit of the law to access desired information from public institutions.
They were also urged to collaborate with the media who can help to name and shame public institutions that are not complying.
All participants at the workshop pledged to carry out their action plans and work together towards the joint implementation of the OGP NAP alongside the government.
The project, supported by the John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, is a three-year initiative which seeks to promote openness, transparency and accountability through the OGP initiative with specific reference to commitments 12, 13 and 14.
