Kogi Assembly To Go Digital – Speaker

Speaker of the Kogi State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon Aliyu Umar Yusuf, has said the legislature is making concerted efforts to digitalise lawmaking in line with the current global realities.

He made the statement yesterday in Lokoja at the inception of a meeting of the Legislative Openness and Oversight Project (LOOP), a programme being implemented by a civil society organisation, the Initiative for Grassroots Advancement (INGRA) in the state.

He noted that the current Assembly is made up of people who are dedicated to entrenching transparency and accountability in line with the objectives of Open Governance Partnership (OGP) project.

Umar, who was represented at the occasion by the member representing Ajaokuta State Constituency in the State Assembly, Hon Jibril Abu, noted that the Eight Assembly is one that promotes inclusive governance just like the administration of Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo is doing in the executive.

According to the speaker, the State House of Assembly is determined to open up the lawmaking process to ensure robust process that would drive inclusive governance, and enjoined members of the Civil Society in the state not to fail in consulting members of the state legislature in areas that would be mutually beneficial.

The LOOP project, the speaker said, is in line with the objectives of the present lawmakers, who he also said are committed to good governance through quality laws that would promote the socio-economic development of Kogi State.

Earlier in his address, the chairman of the Assembly’s Committee on Information, Hon Bode Ogunmola had expressed gratitude to the organization implementing the project in the state, stressing the commitment of the Assembly to ensuring transparency in information dissemination as they concern the activities of the legislature.

He was quick to stress on the need for the organization to make itself available to be supplied with all the publicly available information that they seek.

In his opening address, the executive director of the Initiative for Grassroots Advancement (INGRA), Hamza Aliyu, had cleared the misconception in some quarters that Civil Society Organizations are adversaries to government, noting, rather, that they are partners in progress.

He noted that the objective of the eight month – long programme was to create a digital legislative repository for the state for openness in the lawmaking process in Kogi State.

Against that backdrop, he said the project is warehousing bills, motions, laws, oversight activities, budgets, reports, order papers and other documents about the activities of the Assembly that can be accessed by the click of a button.

Other lawmakers, including the member representing Lokoja I State Constituency, Hon Bin-Ebaiya Shehu Tijjani, the member representing Kogi Kotonkarfe State Constituency, Hon Idrees Aliyu and the member representing Igalamela Odolu State Constituency, Hon Major Enefola were  present at the event, just as were members of Kogi State NGOs Network and others.