The National Coordinator, Open Government Partnership Initiative (OGP), Dr. Gloria K. Ahmed has reiterated the commitment of President Muhammadu Buhari in pushing back against corruption and all forms of inefficiency in the public sector.
The OGP National Coordinator Said this
during the Sensitization Of MDAs in Collaboration Of 2022 Open Government Partnership (OGP) Week, Which Held at the Budget And National Planning Building Abuja, on Wednesday, 20th July, 2022.
According to Ahmed, since the inception of OGP in Nigeria, citizens’ participation in governance has become a priority, as the government seek to mobilize citizens to provide inputs and make contributions that will ensure a responsive and effective governance.
In her words: “One of the key focuses of Nigeria’s membership in the OGP is to build a better relationship between government and civil society, by creating various avenues of engagement and collaboration in the spirit of co-creation. This is evident in the improvement in citizens’ participation in the budget cycle and other fiscal transparency measures”.
She further pledged that under her leadership, the National Secretariat will continue to support the OGP process at the national and sub-national levels to meet the demands encapsulated in the second OGP National Action Plan (NAP 11).
Nigeria NAP 11 has seventeen commitments cutting across seven thematic areas namely; Fiscal Transparency, Extractive Transparency, Anti-Corruption, Access to Information, citizen’s engagement and empowerment, as well as inclusiveness and service delivery.
On his part, the Civil Society Advisor, OGP Secretariat, Uchenna Arisukwu, maintained that power resides with the citizens, and as such, Open Government Partnership is about deepening good governance and giving citizens a voice in the governing process.
Uchenna maintained that in order to achieve the OGP’s third National Action Plan (NAP 3), which has 4 thematic areas covering environmental sustainability, fiscal transparency, access to information and governance, Ministries, Departments and Agencies need to understand basic issues bedeviling the country and suggest a possible way out.
According to him, “OGP insists that participating entities look for local solutions to local problems. In Nigeria we have our own local problems, we wont import solutions from anywhere, we are going to look for homegrown solutions to the issues that we have. that way we can effectively implement and get result.” He said.
The OGP is an international multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving transparency, accountability, citizens participation and responsiveness to citizens through technology and innovation. The initiative was launched to provide an international platform for the government, private sector and Civil Societies to make their government more responsive to citizens.