African Centre for Leadership, strategy and Development (Centre LSD), a civil liberty organisation, weekend said the Federal Government of Nigeria had shown low level of political support and commitment to the Open Government Partnership (OGP), which it signed into law in 2016.
The centre stressed that the President Buhari-led government had not achieved much in the first two and half year of the National Action Plan (NAP) of the OGP, which expires June, despite committing to the pact in the London anti-corruption summit in 2016.
The programme coordinator, Centre LSD, Uchenna Arisukwu, speaking at a media briefing on Friday to commemorate the 2019 OGP week, recalled that Nigeria became the 70th member and the 12th African country to join the OGP process committed to open contracting. “An approach that ensures that transparency frameworks are applied to procurement systems,” Arisukwu explained.
Arisukwu said since the signing into law the OGP by President Buhari, Nigeria had recorded modest achievements in the area of open budgeting, assets recovery, open procurement, access to information, citizens engagement and use of technology.
He however stressed that despite the “achievements” there was much still left to be achieved with the OGP, especially as the process for the development of the second NAP was underway.
To this end, the centre stressed the need for the Federal Government to demonstrate a high level political commitment to the process by ensuring that the policy objectives of the government draw from and support the commitments of the OGP NAP and that high-level commitment officials prioritise OGP events and programmes.
The centre also called for an increased access to government programmes and policies around anti corruption, fiscal management, social investments and that technology platforms and systems need to enhance access is improved upon.
Furthermore, the centre also stressed the need to deepen citizen participation with budget process, procurement process and anti-corruption strategy implementation and for government to ensure high level engagement with citizens in the development of the second OGP NAP.
“There should be a strategic and systematic approach for citizens at all levels to be actively involved in the process from start to finish,” he said.
He said, ” there should be a dedicated avenue in form of websites and at form where citizens can engage the process by making inputs into what they want see in the plan.
“A thorough review of the first NAP should be carried out to identify areas of weakness than can be strengthened in the second plan.”
The centre commended Kaduna, Kano, Anambra, Ebonyi, Abia, Enugu, Niger, Edo, and Adamawa for signing up and domesticating the OGP and developing states action plan.
The centre also called on other states and newly elected Nigerians at both state and federal levels to prioritise the OGP in their agenda and domesticate the OGP in their respective domain.
