Kaduna Citizens embrace Open Government

Participants listening keenly during the engagement

Transparent and citizen-based democracy have been identified as a vital catalyst to good governance in Nigeria.

Dropping the hint while speaking at a one day capacity building programme for Open Government Partnership(OGP) Kaduna, State Team Leader, Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn(PERL-ECP), Mr Abel Adejo, disclosed that OGP is operating in no fewer than 75 countries in the world.

" Kaduna is the only state in Nigeria operating OGP; the one of the very few sub-nationals in Africa. In Africa Nigeria and Kaduna state were second to be registered in Africa", Adejo volunteered, tracing the origin of OGP in Africa to 2014 when Kenya and Tanzania keyed into the programme. While stressing that "transparency and accountability" remain the watchwords of open government partnership, Adejo informed that the initiative was not an abstract thing but essentially designed to benefit the people.

Also speaking, Seun Onigbinde of BudgIT reiterated that accountability leads to efficiency and best practices which in turn accommodates good governance. "I belong to the 'social contract theory' school which gives back to the people", Onigbinde said, pointing out that the Civil Society should sustain the on-going dialogue mechanism because abandoning it would be unwise.

It was resolved at the meeting that Independent monitoring and documentation at every stage of implementation of the commitment should hold sway.

Nigeria our Correspondent gathered, joined as the 70th country in the world. The one day capacity building program which was organized at the instance of the organized civil society in Kaduna attracted over 120 participants drawn from the three senatorial districts of the state.

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