NGO Tasks Nigerians, Govt On Transparency

Nigerians have been charged to coalesce efforts towards achieving a more transparent and accountable system in the country.

The senior programme advisor of a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC), Ife Olatunji-David, who gave the charge, said laws are in place backing the citizens to speak to power.

The PPDC also urged Nigerians, particularly those in the public procurement sector, to always hold the government accountable.

She spoke in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital at a five-day Sub-national Public Procurement BootCamp organised by the centre and supported by the MacArthur Foundation.

Olatunji-David, who posited that the majority of the citizens seemed not to know their rights, said governments are ready to respond to the letters written to them these days by the citizens.

“If they are advised to write a letter to the government to make a demand(s), they will say they won’t answer.  But the truth is that the law makes provision that they have to respond to such letters within several days.

’ We are out to educate our citizens on that right of writing letters of making their demands known to the government and educating on other proper channels to follow, because even if you have the right and you don’t do it in the proper way, the government will have the opening to say that they are not going to respond. So we are educating them on all the processes to follow to engage the government and we are sure that the Ekiti state government will respond when citizens do everything properly.”

Also, the centre’s senior communication officer, Nnena Eze said the programme was designed to empower the citizens, ensuring that they get value for their money and better service delivery and help them in speaking out on issues affecting them

“It is when the citizens know how to actively and effectively hold the government accountable, they will be able to tell them about the infrastructures being put in place which are not rightly and property executed,’’ Eze said.