A leading NGO Connected development [CODE] has called on government at all level to take up one of its responsibilities by ensuring proper facilities are put in place in various primary health care centers in Nigeria.

Following the release of $1.5million dollars from World Bank to the 36 states respectively including the Federal Capital Territory as part of the World Bank supported “Save One million Lives” the Follow the Money team of CODE visited 6 states respectively to assess the state of the PHCs to track the implementation of these funds. These states are Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Kano, Kogi, Osun and Yobe.

Findings from the field visit to each of the states are appalling as most of the Primary Health Centres are facing several reprehensible and elementary challenges. Generically, most of them have no improved water supply, electricity, security, quarters for hospital staffers; there is no stationed doctor, and the toilet facilities are in a mess. Furthermore, because of these challenges, the PHCs do not operate 24/7, cannot admit or treat sick people and lack sufficient tables & chairs.

Some key Findings:

In Kano

Follow The money team visited Kantudu in Makoda LGA of Kano State. They found out that the PHC serves 2,500 people, all coming from 13 surrounding villages. The PHC was built 5-6 years ago as a senatorial project in Makoda LGA. The PHC has one male and female ward, which are not presently functioning. There are only three staffers with one community health worker who are not certified health professionals.

During the interactive section with the head of community Alhaji Muhammad Musa, and the community association said that they have reached out to the government of Kano twice on the state of the health centre in Kantudu, but there was no response. “We hope this campaign with ONE and CODE will make the government of Kano look at the plight of our health center so that our people can start using it” says Malam Ali, the medical head at the PHC.

In Yobe State

We were in Lantenwa, Yobe where a Primary Health Care is in a messy situation. The PHC in Lantenwa is in Lantewa village, Lantewa ward, Tarmuwa LGA. It serves a population of 13,400 under 5 yrs; 10-15 patients daily, 70-105 weekly. Speaking to the head community ,AuduLantewa, mentioned that the dispensary has been dilapidated for more than 7 years, he added that dispensary situation is critical and he personally reported the issue to local authorities several times. He further lamented that “Lantewa is the gathering centre of four neighbouring with approximately 7,000 registered voters, as such, we should get better things from the government” he said

In Kogi State

We went to the PHC to find out if the implementation of the fund is ongoing as well as to track the implementation of the N10.5 million earmarked by the National Primary Health care Development Agency for the rehabilitation of the PHC. On reaching there, there was no such intervention taking place. The Officer in Charge (OIC) said it was the first time she was hearing of such. The village head whom we paid a courtesy visit to also said he has never heard of such. We then went to the Operational Base of the NsitIbom LGA’s Health Centres and the Director of the base told us that she has never heard of such fund for the PHC’s rehabilitation

In Osun State

Our team went on ground to track the $1.5m earmarked by the World Bank and the Federal Government of Nigeria for the Saving One Million Lives Initiative and all we could see while on the field is nothing to write home about. From our findings, the facility is meant to serve 11 villages which are: Gboore, Alajue-Logun, Asunmo, Ayegbami, Agbopa, Jagun-Odomu, Olodan, Aladie, Amosun, Seesa, Akiribiti amongst others. In total, the target population which the facility is meant to serve is 12,498. 498 of the population are children less than one year, the Primary Health Care Centre has a monthly target of 42 patients, but it ends up serving more than 400 on an average.

Consequently, a Freedom of Information letters was sent to the concerned government institutions and offices for a breakdown of the funds usage, implementation window and respective contractors, especially the governmental institutions concerned, to instantaneously start the implementation of these funds, ensure transparency & accountability in the funds’ implementation, and make government data open in line with the Open Government Partnership.

Follow The Money is a growing movement currently in 32 states of the country, held community outreaches to 10 primary health facilities in Kano, Yobe, Osun, and found out that all were in a state of dysfunction, even with the funds that have been released to the states to upgrade the primary health care “Most of the Clinic at the PHC in the 5 states that our community reporters visited were in an abandoned state, lacks basic healthcare amenities and needs urgent attention to serve people at local communities.” affirmed Hamzat Lawal, CODE’s Chief Executive & Co-Founder, Follow The Money.   

He stressed that annually, over 70,000 children below age 5 in Nigeria die due to poor access to healthcare and sanitation-related illnesses (UNICEF). Lawal urged government actions to serve the people by improving better service delivery while ensuring transparency and accountability.

More pictures can be found here https://flic.kr/s/aHskNiNznP

In a bid to safeguard transparency and accountability around several themes concerning the Budget, the Committee on Diaspora and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) of the Nigerian Senate in collaboration with Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) and UK‎ Department for International Development (DFID) on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2016 hosted an Interactive Session. The Session was between the Senate Committee on Diaspora and Non-Governmental Organisations and Civil Society Organisations on Nigeria’s Budgeting System with a Focus on 2016 Budget Performance and 2017 Budget.

The President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki was available to declare open the Interactive Session. He stated, “The implementation of the 2016 Budget is still ongoing” and added that, “Non-oil revenues are also falling out of projection, affecting the Budget implementation.”

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Diaspora and Non-Governmental Organisations, Senator Rose Oko gave her opening remarks and extensively gave commended the efforts of the NGOs and CSOs partnership that has yielded a whole lot of benefits over the past years.

She said, “At the first session held at Transcorp Hilton on 8th of February 2016, a consensus was reached that a Memorandum of Cooperation be developed.”
According to her, “On the 10th February 2016, another session was held in the Senate Conference room and was attended by the Senate President. A Major outcome of the meeting was the strong position canvassed by the CSOs seeking to be involved in the budgetary process in the National Assembly. The Senate believes that the involvement of CSOs would add value to the budgetary process of the National Assembly.”

She went further to say, “Senate reasoned that their involvement would also help to improve service delivery as government would feel pressured to perform better based on the CSOs budget analysis, general oversight role and information dissemination.”

“Senate therefore considered that the participation of CSOs could strengthen the legislators’ functions on budgetary matters by way of delivering research-based evidence and advice to members of the National Assembly”.

Senator Rose Oko reiterated further that the Senate, “Will use this forum to develop a functional framework that will enable us to achieve enhanced results in the budget system. Fundamentally, this meeting will offer us a crucial window to preview and endorse our Memorandum of Cooperation with a view to affirming the direction of our partnership. This development would enable us to commence without further delay, mutual activities and joint actions beneficial to our Nation”.

She congratulated us all and welcomed us to this new bond of a working relationship between the CSOs and Legislature.

The Chairman of PLAC, Mr. Clement Nwankwo was in attendance and also gave insightful tips on how the Senate can gain the CSOs trust.

He said, “We want to see the figures reeled out as to what has been achieved”. He expressed further that, “The executives should explain to the masses what has happened to the 2016 budget.”

To bring his remarks to a close, he said, “CSOs have questions to ask” and that, “We hope the partnership between CSOs and the Senate will bring good results.”

In attendance also was Dr. Otive Igbuzor, the Executive Director, African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development. He gave a detailed speech tailored towards ensuring mutual harmony of the CSOs and Legislature, he was, however very brave to point at the hollow points in the designing strategies of the budget and gave a broader overview.

In his remarks he said, “In Nigeria, there are a lot of blockages to effective budgeting. First and foremost, the budgetary process is not participatory. Citizens and communities do not participate in formulating policies and agreeing on projects that go into the budget. Meanwhile, It has been documented that wherever participatory budget is implemented. It has expanded citizenship, empowered excluded groups, redeemed rights, deepened democracy and stimulated civil society.”

‎He said, “The budgetary process is not open. Corruption in any country starts from the budgetary process. In very corrupt countries, the budget is done in secrecy. Releases are done without the knowledge of citizens. Procurement information is not made available to Citizens and corruption is guarded and protected.”

He went further, “A budget is regarded as open if Citizens have access to the key budget documents; have high level of involvement in the budgetary process and have access to procurement information.”

Still on citizens participation in the budgetary process, Dr Otive said, “As a matter of fact, democracy will be meaningless if the citizens do not participate in how government raise and spend money. This is why the tool – Open Budget Survey Tracker – developed by the International Budget Partnership is a very useful instrument.”

What he said concerning the budget not being in accordance with the development challenges of the country is that, “There is no synergy between plans, policy and budget. We have always argued that there is the need for better public finance management across the world because of increasing inequality and non-inclusive growth. The past five decades have witnessed monumental changes in the world. Global economic wealth has increased sevenfold and average incomes have tripled.”

He said there are frivolous expenditures in the budget that will not stand any reasoning and logic. “For instance, the Centre for Social Justice documented N668.8 billion frivolous expenditure in the 2016 budget. They include N3.91 billion allocated annual reporting maintenance of villa facilities; N322.4 million for linking of cable to drivers rest room at the villa; N213.8 million for linking cable from guest house to generator house etc.”

He was quick to point at the institutions and mechanisms for oversight of the budgetary process as being weak. He said, “In any modern democracy, the legislature, civil society and media are expected to play oversight functions in addition to the internal control system in place by the executive.”

According to him, there were many lessons learnt from the 2016 budget implementation, some of which are: the Engagement by Citizens and citizens’ groups produced some positive reports in terms of reduction of frivolous expenditure. For instance, CSJ documented a total saving of N71,954,532,546.00 from the 2016.

“Delay in passage of budget continued in 2016. This has the potential to affect budget performance negatively. There was low capacity in understanding the new budgetary approach of zero base budgeting on the part of public servant and civil society,” he asserted.

He also made a deep dive into how Civic Education, Social, Economic and political resilience, budget literacy, comparative analysis of best practice in budgeting are the issues that formulate emerging consensus among civil society that needs to be addressed going forward.

According to Dr. Igbuzor, there are three ways we could measure the impact level performance of the 2016 budget, they are: Input Level, which is how much of the budgeted amount was released and used in the implementation.

Process, how the activities were carried out. Procurement process asks if the activities are carried out as and at when due.

Output, Outcome and Impact levels concerns the immediate result of the activities. The effect of the budget activities or any change attributable to the budget actives and Change in people’s lives attributable to the budget respectively.

He lamented that, “For a very long time, Nigeria had no institutionalised monitoring and evaluation system where there is a regular production of monitoring information; regular production of monitoring findings; and monitoring and evaluation findings are used to improve government performance.”

In conclusion, he commended the National Assembly for the interactive session. He stated, “We need to go a step further by ensuring public hearing in the budget at all levels: Federal, State and Local Government. I undemanding that the leadership of the National Assembly has agreed on the need to subject the budget to Public hearing. The 2017 budget should be the beginning point.”

Positive reactions and  towards his remarks came from different sections of the room.

Critical observations and assessment of Citizens’ priorities in Budgeting Formulations was made by Barrister Eze Onyekpere of the Centre for Social Justice.

The representative of Department of International Development prayed ‎prayed that, “It will be helpful if you can ensure this becomes a norm and part and parcel of the legislation in terms of what concerns the citizens.”

The Chief Executive of Connected Development, Hamzat Lawal who was present at the Interactive Session raised the tempo of the hall when he greeted with the assertion that,‎ “There’s a World Bank intervention fund for PHCs across Nigeria, we just came back from Akwa Ibom, Kogi, Osun, Yobe, Enugu, Osun and Kano as we seat, nothing has been done.”

Senator Tejuosho, Chairman Senate Committee on Health also mildly acknowledged that, “Of course The Health Act is one of the declarations that I know we are violating”.‎

Senator Rose Oko, in her closing remarks said, “We need to work together, the CSOs and the Nation Assembly need to work together.”

“We will recommend a resolution of this interactive session to the Senate for approval”.‎

Lastly, she assured that, “We will make available to you the conclusion of this meeting.”

The Senate was reminded of their promise that, ‎”You made a promise to #OpenNASS, please open it up”‎ and this, to me was the highpoint of the Interactive Session.

So have you heard about the Colorado Springs? Our team members – Emmanuel Njoku and Babatunde Adegoke are there to observe the United States Presidential Elections in Colorado, on the auspices of Ford Foundation, Independent Republican Institute and the Institute of International Education. On November 7, 2016, They met the Chairman and CEO of El Pomar Foundation – William J. Hybl and his team of very cool people hosted them to a luncheon alongside Secretary of State of Colorado – Wayne Williams, and some wonderful young observers from South Africa, Botswana and Namibia at the prestigious Penrose House in Colorado Springs, where they discussed Leadership, Democracy, Governance and the November 8, 2016, presidential elections and processes that have been put in place to ensure that the polls is credible and trusted by all.

From right, Colorado Secretary of State, Emmanuel Njoku, Tunde Adegoke and a state representative during a meeting on November 4 at the Broadway

Interestingly, they were informed that the State of Colorado has about 3.5million registered voters, and about 2.6million of these people are expected to vote, of which 2 million of these votes have already been cast, which simply means that just about 600,000 persons will be voting during the elections today across the 64 Counties(LGA) of Colorado. So that you know, you can cast your vote 21 days before the real election day!

This early voting practised in the state of Colorado will completely eliminate all the pressure that usually will be witnessed on a typical election day. This brings me back to Nigeria, where elections are held in one day, and the economy of the whole country is put to a halt, due to the elections. Perhaps, the Independent National Electoral commission (INEC) should take a cue, and leverage technology to make voting possible even before the election day.

Group picture of African Observers meeting with the Secretary of State of Colorado at the El Pomar Foundation

That sounds like a pinch of salt, right? if INEC is to achieve this feat, it must yield to a whole change management system which should be initiated by the leadership of INEC. Again, I will not subscribe to lack of funds as an excuse, INEC only needs few dedicated experts  that can always look up to the leadership for unflinching support in providing a methodology and system that allows for early voting. Unfortunately, I just remembered, INEC is still struggling with the registration of voters like myself, while you can register on the day of elections in the state of Colorado – See you in 2019!

 

Life has been good so far, but not very good when one has not yet experienced the real world before now!

The reality of life somehow depends on the level of experience one has acquired. These and more were discussions I was having with my brother about my plan to get the real experience that I need and he told me not to worry as he will introduce me to an organisation that will help me realize my dreams, I was very happy with this response from him, I was told to send my  CV together with a cover letter to the CEO of CODE, which I did and, excitingly, I got an email after some days together with a phone call telling to resume on Monday by 8am, that was the turning point of my life, as I was filled with joy.

On that very Monday, the weather was not very friendly as it was raining heavily but I did not bother as I could not afford to miss the opportunity I have been looking for a very long time. When I got to the office on that day, I got many things playing football in my brain as I met with encouraging and vibrant young people as against my expectations of meeting with Chiefs and Alhajis.

The most surprising part was when the CEO of CODE came in and introduced himself as Mr. Hamzat Lawal AKA Hamzy!, I was like is this the almighty Hamzat? Honestly, his name sounds bigger than his appearance, he quickly introduced me to the team at CODE and I was warmly received by everyone and immediately I joined in the team’s meeting, and after I was assigned to work with Mr. Tunde on the Grenade team (Data Mining). Honestly, working with him has been amazing as he’s teaching me everything I need to know about data mining and all about CODE’s work. He has never failed to answer any of my numerous questions or put me through in any difficulty, and, has inspired me so well.

One of the things that CODE has automatically changed in my life is the use of E-MAIL as an important means of communication. I have had many email accounts but only use it when I have something that phone calls or SMS can’t do. Now, I have been able to use one email for a whole month which has never happened in my entire life as I always find myself in the past, each time I want to check my mail, it would have been blocked because I am not very friendly with it as I have always preferred text messages and phone calls as means of communication, I am very happy that CODE has installed the use of email in me.

At CODE, I have been taught the use of Google drive which seems to be a big deal before I got here because I use to hear it from friends, I can remember when a friend asked me to pay him so that he can teach me, I am more excited today because I have learnt more than what he could have taught me, within my first one month in CODE, I can say that I have been able to develop a good working relationship with the team as I have noticed that everyone is committed in bringing out the best in me.

While I still work as an Intern here, I expect to gain writing confidence as I know that I love to write but have always doubted my ability. I strongly believe within my short stay at CODE, I will gain the ability of putting out strong, positive and constructive write ups.

Being too friendly has also been a challenge to me as I am not a very social type, but the CODE family has been of great support and help to me. As I continue as an intern in this great organisation, I intend to learn more than I can as working with CODE has been my best experience in life and i thank the management and staff of CODE for the opportunity given to me and all their commitments and efforts put in place to ensure I become a better person.

New Media, Citizens, and Governance Conference have come and gone but the memories will be with us for decades to come.

Hosted by BudgIT, EiENigeria and Paradigm Initiative Nigeria. The event encapsulated and gave a crisp dialysis of NEW MEDIA and the roles of CITIZENS.

The event which lasted from 26th to 27th October, 2016 has New Media, Citizens and Governance as its theme.

It was a pleasant experience for me, Tech savvy, New Media moguls, Motivational speakers, Men and Women of high repute, Journalists, Lawyers, Human Rights activists all converged from different parts of Africa to discuss “Rights and Responsibilities”

Kenya and Tanzania were represented and made the 2-day event a memory to convert and document.

There were so many top-notch moments in the event that lasted for 2 days. There was an increasing level of enthusiasm as many‎ of the speakers were introduced. This gave a strong signal that we were in it to have a real NEW MEDIA experience.

‎As we were launched into the segment of Rights and Responsibilities of citizens and Government in using new media in a mutually beneficial way, the Senior Economic Adviser, Africa Economic Development Initiative; Oby Ezewkesili explained to us why “you can’t retire from The Office of the Citizen of the Federal Republic”. She was elaborate and She made clear the obfuscated shifts in the minds of citizens about how our participation in Governance of our country should be. She said “Social contract forms the way that the Government and Citizens relate. There are roles, rights, responsibilities that support this.”

One thing that stood out as the high point of her speech is that “Majority of the adult #Nigerians never really understood the political system called #Democracy”

This led us to have a deep feeling of how coarse Nigeria is and the terrain too unjust for the timid youths. ‎She however gave advice and she said “My suggestion: Before the next NMCG, there should be a massive work by the populace at KNOW YOUR CONSTITUTION “. She advised that we apply strategy to our actions as “Hashtags are necessary conditions for effecting action but it are not sufficient” ‎ She buttressed her points and further stressed that “The knowledge is key barrier to the consolidation of the constitution of Nigeria” as in her words “I was called a Saboteur when I was in government”

Moving on, we had the Senior Legal Officer for the Africa Program of the Open Society Justice Initiative in person of Dr. Chidi Odinkalu and Representative of the Director-General of National Orientation Agency (NOA) discussed New Media and National Orientation. They threw light on role of Media in citizens’ education.
Chidi Odinkalu was particularly fluid and made his points as clear and straight as possible. He said “I do not think the Government has done enough in closing the gaps of geopolitics in terms of ‎Education” as”Education is over-parastatalized”. He gave very concise examples and related it to the ugly condition our Education has been relegated to.

He believes that “Education is the New Frontier”. He also gave a staunch note that “Nigeria has also changed positively and negatively on culture, one that has changed positively is Bigotry”. He however asked us to move away from dogmatism and embrace oneness and purge ourselves of all intents that lack spontaneity and originality.

Day one of the event also brought focus on how Citizens have taken actions on issues in their community on governance, accountability, and transparency to us. With Hamzat Lawal of Connected Development, Egghead Odewale who is the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Steel and Solid Minerals, Abayomi Akinbo of BudgIT Nigeria all speaking from different pedestals and giving insightful tips on how we should agitate for implementation of the projects the Government has earmarked in different communities.

Mr Egghead Odewale spoke in an elaborate fashion about how government senses our Social Media agitation.

Mr Hamzat was intricately debating on the Success himself and his team were able to achieve from #SaveBagega and other things involved using conventional media tools as well as new media tools. He stressed further that ‎”The good thing is we have FOI but it’s unfortunate that some of our governors don’t even respect this”.

The Last option for Day 1 was unveiled and we have a broad discussion on Effective and Efficient Law Making which was moderated by the Director, Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) with inputs from Samson Itodo and Adeboye Adegoke of Youth Initiative for Advocacy, Growth and Advancement (YIAGA) and Paradigm Initiative Nigeria respectively. These young men made long cases towards the process of raising the masses to some assigned power.
Extensive debate about the #NotTooYoungToRun bill ‎was made and it was properly lit.‎ Samson added that “We are yet to appreciate the concept of inclusion” and that “Democracy is all about inclusion”

Day 2 of the event was properly engaging with a wide range of topical issues to ‎debate.

Over the issue of New Media and Elections, we understood that New Media continues to play a crucial role in elections on the continent.
The speakers were able to pull the strings and gave strong points. Fatu Ogwuche was one of the panelists and she’s advised “We as Nigerians need to move from toxic conversation to engaging conversation” in the journey to democratic ascension. Moreover, she killed the motion that we can outright reduce the cost of conducting elections in Nigeria. To some people she says ‎”Election is an enterprise, people make a lot of money off elections” and “People like to spend money around elections”

Chuks Ojidoh of Governance Program of Community Life Project (CLP) said ‎”What else we need to use Social Media for is for Civic Education”

Captain Umar Aliyu of GoldWater & RiverSand Consults was the sole speaker on New Media and National security. He engaged the moderator, Gbenga Sesan on whether New Media is threat to National Security. He had a lengthy and articulate discussion, expressing himself easily and clearly on How New Media has influenced or impacted on Matters concerning security.

With concise analysis, he gave a brilliant speech each time a question was asked him. He started off by saying “Facebook is a global notice board and I use it to get Pulse shots”.

He went on further to say “New Media is a threat to National Security” and “There are challenges in our Security and the challenges, with New Media – can prompt our security to grow/explore” ‎
He exuded intellectuality and was on point as he held sway for the 1 hour he was on the podium. When a question “How do the Military get to engage with citizenry and Vice-Versa?” was asked from the audience. He was affirmative as he answered ‎”‎Military – Civil relations is just 3% awake in ‎Nigeria” and that “‎We‎ haven’t taken time to break the Ice as we have Myths surrounding the Soldier”

The Engagement Unusual segment was the talk of the 2-day event as Speakers from different sides of life divide were represented. Sitawa Wafula, Blogger from Kenya, Bobrisky the controversial internet sensation, Kunle Idowu aka Frank Donga and PR Expert Femi Falodun all came to the stage and gave a very good description of themselves.

Frank Donga showed brilliant brilliance, Femi Falodun had a lot to speak about and Sitawa Wafula gave breathtaking speeches that got us all drowned into the reality of life.

Sitawa Wafula gave a whapping story into her life about how she has decisively dealt with Epilepsy and has had to cope with the stigma that attaches to rape victims and survivors.

A short video clip of about 4:15 minutes was surprisingly beamed to the large screen as Sitawa Wafula explained how to tackle mental illness. This video clip titled “A Little More” got us all in awe and moved many to tears. She added dexterity and passion to her segment of discourse as she laid on stage to give few tips on how to restore an Epileptic patient back to normalcy.
Sitawa Wafula demonstrated passion and zeal – making sure the aura in explaining mental psychology to the listening participants captivated the whole auditorium.

The closing part of the event was most definitely the best. Media Aides of top guns in the Government of Nigeria came through to discuss Managing Social Media accounts for Public Officials. The discussion spans how public officials’ Social Media accounts reflects the thoughts of its owners and how they are able cope with intricate issues surrounding their roles.

Ifeanyi Aniagoh, media Aide of Anambra State governor said ‎”One thing you need to know is, Government doesn’t end on your desk as a Media Aide” ‎

Lesson learnt. It is important to us as Youths to harness and harmonize our strengths for a common goal and in pursuing this, we should be law-abiding.

Olagunju Paul Olusegun.

“Amongst the 70 member countries of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), African countries has the most ambitious commitments, and also has the least number of implementations of their commitment as seen in the independent reporting mechanism but Nigeria can reverse that order as the country has made huge commitment at the London Corruption Summit and hopes to make it tandem with its anti-corruption campaign in the country” says Sanjay Pradhan during the first day of the OGP retreat in Nigeria on October 24, 2016 at the Hotel Seventeen in Kaduna .

The OGP CEO, Sanjay Pradhan making a presentation on OGP during the retreat in Nigeria

Looking at the panel to discuss commitments around the Nigeria OGP National Action Plan, I was deluded by the fact that the government representatives except for two, were not appropriate enough to discuss pertinent issues around beneficial ownership, open budget, open contracting,  transparency in extractives, access to information, and open data.  I quite  understand that the people in authority, in this ministries are hard to get for such conversation, but if it were really a “government – driven initiative” we should be seeing them coming to talk about these issues in the public.

I would have expected to see Zainab Ahmed, the Minister of State, Budget and National Planning making commitments of publishing online, location – based infrastructure data with their baseline indicators (current state) to the public by December 2017, so this can aid better planning; also the out-spoken Funmi Adeosun, the Minister for Finance committing that “detailed” government spending will be made available to the public by default as from November 2017, and also that the Bureau of Public Procurement will upgrade their website to include procurement plans, tender notices, bid evaluation,contract award documents, and termination information, while connecting it to a citizen feedback platform that can help make sure projects are really been implemented by contractors.

Nevertheless, there were some takeaways from the panel Joe Abbah, of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms had stated that by 2019, all FOIA request will be responded to in 2 minutes! In – fact, they have started something that looks like that in the Bureau, if you want to request for an information from the government, [APPLY HERE] I am sure you are all looking forward to this, it might not be rocket science! Also, the representative from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) mentioned that for beneficial ownership to work, the Corporate Affairs Commission and the Companies and Allied Matter Act must be amended immediately to disclose beneficial ownership of companies, and not just the publishing of company names that are registered with the CAC which anyways, is a step in the right direction.

Looking across the Panel of government + CSOs

But why does it take the government a longer time than the 7 days proposed in the law to get a response to an FOIA request, the representative from the Ministry of Budget and National Planning stated that the oath of secrecy signed by civil servants prevents most of them to disclose information requested for through the FOIA. That’s so unimaginable! However, Joe Abbah, stated clearly, that we need to amend the public service rules because civil servants abide by rules and not laws!

My worry is not that leadership in the executive arm of government would not come out and make commitments, my worry is that implementing such commitment on the basis of a system that would not allow it to work efficiently is the reality, and such is the case for most African countries. As much as this becomes a drawback for me in this “government – CSO “driven movement, I am certain that few positives might be recorded, as we have started seeing from the Ministry of Justice, the agent of the state where the OGP is domiciled in Nigeria.

The civil society mapping forum held on October 21, 2016 at Bolton White Hotel, Abuja, organized by DFID (PERL), basically brought civil society groups from various part of the country together to deliberate and share experiences of what they do and how they can work with other society groups that have the same thematic work area. To this effect, various civil society organizations were in attendance including Connected Development (CODE).

PERL is about service delivery and is divided into three aspects which are as follows: ARC work with government, ECP engage citizen with government and LEAP looks at the lessons from ECP to enable government use the lesson to achieve a goal.

Furthermore, there was a group interactive session that enables civil society groups to share what they do in details and the breakout sessions covering thematic areas such as good governance, corruption, budget, education, health, environment, agriculture using various approach like advocacy capacity building, publicity, research and to mention by a few, enable groups to identify and network with groups that have same objectives. In addition, effective ways for citizens to engage with government was suggested using the Freedom of Information Act to enable citizens hold government accountable and to promote transparency.

So finally, after 3 years of intent, Nigeria got admitted into the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in July 2016 , a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance while creating a platform for civil society organizations to collaborate with government institutions on ensuring transparency, accountability, citizen participation, and technology and innovation.

In view of this, I had to visit the city of Kaduna, to attend the CSO Day on Sunday, October 23 and the retreat with government institutions on Monday, October 24. The CSO day brought together civil society organisations from every part of the country to discuss the CSO draft national action plan and the future of CSO engagement with the OGP. One resounding issue during the day was coordination – not only amongst government agencies but also amongst the CSO, and a consensus was reached, that the Open Alliance continue to lead and coordinate CSO engagement for the actualization of the OGP in Nigeria.

A cross section of participants at the OGP CSO Day

It is expected that as part of the coordination, CSOs that focus on the values of OGP at the sub-national level can become responsible in that area once they have been admitted as a member of the Open Alliance, who presently has about 40 members intending to join it, and 10 members already. As OGP success hinges on partnership, trust and coordination, it will be important to “think strategically with coordination, find champions in the government and to be able to overcome the issue of partnership, you must trust the government and the government must trust the CSOs” as taken from the words of Maureen Kariuki, the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Regional Civil Society Coordinator for Africa and the Middle East.

One other take away from the CSO Day was the conversation around how to encourage citizen participation and government feedback, using the platform OGP has created. With many citizens platform in the country without government feedback, I think it will be relevant and mostly appreciated if the National Action Plan been drafted presently can include a coordinated citizen engagement platform, in which government agencies can commit to being part of, to offer timely responses and feedback to citizens, maybe, the Nairaland of citizen participation. Sanjay Pradhan, the CEO of OGP, mentioned an example of such platform to be Prozorro, in Ukraine, actually, I met the developers of this public e-procurement system in Madrid during the IODC.

With the present draft National Action Plan having 8 commitments by the government, spearheaded by the Ministry of Justice, we can only hope that CSOs focus on their strength, and become watchdogs of the implementation of such commitments, I mean, they have been doing same in their everyday activities – maybe this time with proper coordination and direction – no thanks to the OGP!

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”– Sydney J. Harris

An average Nigerian work 9 hours/day, 47 hours /week and we barely have time to rest, we are always in a hurry to get things done, in a hurry even on the highway. The question that comes to mind is: Why the hurry? Where are we really rushing to?

But how many times do we take out time to check our health or even rest, slow down to think and not overwork ourselves. The Nigerian watch revealed that  75% of Nigerians fall sick due to work stress. We visit hospitals most times when the ailment is at a critical stage and often times most ailment are work stress related because we do not take out time to relax. We rather just get drugs from a roadside pharmacy when we have the slightest symptoms, thereby worsen the case that ought to have a proper diagnosis.

Every job has stress and at some point we feel the work pressure and this stress can occur in different forms like trying to fulfill a challenging obligation or trying to meet a deadline. But when work stress persist then this can be harmful to our health. Work stress can contribute to health issues such as headache, sleep disorder, difficulty in concentrating, short temper, it can also weaken the immune system amongst other noticeable symptoms.

Record shows that some persons deal with stress using different unhealthy mechanisms ranging from abusing drugs and smoking or even taking alcohols, overeating or unhealthy eating and other unhealthy coping mechanisms.

From my personal observation, I discovered that more Doctors visit and serious illness are linked to work stress, most times instead of visiting the Hospital for a proper check up, most people just prefer to buy drugs from a roadside drug seller or we buy drugs from the chemist in our neighborhood not minding the fact that they are not trained.

My advice, according to psychologists, that we adopt some coping mechanisms like make the most of our break, even if it’s 10 minutes of our busy schedule and this have proven to help refresh our mental outlook, try to take a brief walk or just interact with colleagues and always walk away when you are angry (mental regroup) or my favorite, sit quietly with your eyes closed and take a deep breath.

We should also set reasonable standards, learn to work together with colleagues to achieve needed change in the organisation, also the overall productivity of the organisation will increase and this will improve our health as well.

Next time you are feeling stressed, take time to listen to your body, just rest and save yourself extra stress of hospital runs, a Philosopher said “To go slow is to go fast. I think that applies to everything in Life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with less stress.”

On 13 and 14^th of October 2016, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) in partnership with the Embassy of Germany organized a Workshop on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Abuja, Nigeria with the theme: Mainstreaming a low carbon framework into the federal budgeting system. The workshop aimed at ensuring the implementation of Nigeria’s commitments on climate change and the environment using the policy, planning and budgetary frameworks. In participation were over 50 participants drawn from relevant government’s Ministries, Departments & Agencies (MDAs); Civil Society Organizations; the academia; and the private sector. CODE was invited in recognition of our works in Sustainable Development.

Prior to the workshop, the CSJ undertook research and documentation for the mainstreaming of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions commitments in pilot MDAs. The MDAs include Agriculture; Budget & National Planning; Environment; Housing, Power & Works; Transport; Water Resources; Solid Minerals; and Labour & Employment. This was through reviewing key policy instruments in the sectors, budget trends and their implications for carbon reduction whilst making coherent recommendations for a low carbon budget framework.

The workshop was then used to bring together all relevant stakeholders to review CSJ’s research outcome and to facilitate the fingering of low hanging fruits in the sectors which can be implemented without the deployment of too much efforts and resources. The first day of the conference started with several paper presentations on Paris Climate Change Agreement; Macroeconomic and fiscal interventions to combat and mitigate the adverse effects of climate change; and Mainstreaming a low carbon framework in the agricultural and water resources sectors.

Post these interesting presentations was then the segmentation of the participants into several groups to review and validate the research outcome drafts, on each sector, already prepared by the CSJ. Each group were headed by the personnel of a Ministry, in charge of the sector. The groups later presented the reviews of the documents and presented it to the whole participants for further comments and finalization. The second day went straight to continual group presentations and another segmentation for the research outcome drafts of sectors that were not reviewed in the previous day.

I was really impressed by this workshop, with the great team of CSJ that did beautiful work in organizing the event, embarking on such great research and having the papers ready for review during the workshop. I also met interesting participants and elemental stakeholders from several MDAs whose group contributions were so helpful, and offside discussions during tea & lunch breaks, I learnt so much from. I so much hope that through the post workshop strategies that were identified at the end of the conference, CSJ would be able to advocate for the inclusion of our recommendations in the policy & budgetary frameworks of the MDAs.