Why Transparency, Accountability are Lacking in Government

Joe Abah/

Many Nigerians aren’t even aware that some agencies exist. That is a worry as are spending your money and acting in your name. You have a right to demand to know what they do for the money they get. This helps them & helps you.

Sometime in 2015, when I was the DG of @bpsr_ng, I got an innocuous Freedom of Information request from a group called the Independent Service Delivery Monitoring Group @isdmg. Their request was simple: tell us what you did for the money you got in 2014.

We responded and they invited us to an event and gave us a plaque to encourage us. That was when I first met the convener of the group @AMADICHIMA. Other agencies too were there. Everybody took it quite seriously and we’re proud of what they had achieved the previous year.

Being a researcher, I immediately looked into the methodology to confirm whether or not it was robust. I spoke to donors, like the World Bank, who confirmed to me that they had similarly looked at their methodology and that it was sound and robust. I felt reassured.

In 2016, we were ready for them. When the request came again, we responded within hours. We won N500,000 for the fastest ever response to an FOI request. We donated the money to the FCT School for Blind Children. By 2016, we had compiled a book bpsr.gov.ng/index.php/publ…The book wasn’t just about what we had done but about all the key reforms that had happened in Nigeria since 1999. Ministries and agencies were keen to showcase their achievements. Some questioned why they were left out and some even wrote official complaints.

In response, I just repeated @isdmgand @AMADICHIMA’s simple question: Tell us what reforms you have embarked on for all the monies you’ve got since 1999. Loud silence. End of the matter. Many started preparing for the next publication of the book that took the reforms to 2017.

What methodology did @isdmg use? They wrote you an FOI request. Based on your response, they published your name in newspapers and asked Nigerians to vote using text messages. This grounds your activities in public reality. The agency or Ministry with the highest votes won.We wrote to @AMADICHIMA to complain because agencies that had more money and staff than us could simply spend thousands of Naira on recharge cards and order their staff to use it and keep texting and voting for them. We felt that this disadvantaged smaller, poorer agencies.

Also, on the public voting side, agencies that give away goodies, like TETFUND, will always be more popular than those that engage in systemic change like @bpsr_ng. @AMADICHIMA listened and created different categories for the different agencies. That is why we won in 2016.

He then decided to take a fellowship at a university abroad and the initiative didn’t continue…unfortunately, but the idea did. After I left, @bpsr_ngproduced an updated compendium of all the key reforms between 2015 and 2017. Now, they didn’t need to beg agencies to respond.

You can now see how a simple demand for accountability by a civil society organisation, combined with public involvement and an incentive to improve made a big difference to a reform bureau and many other government organisations. This is something @ServicomOffice can take up.As citizens, we often feel that we are powerless to drive change from the outside. I hope that the example of @isdmg led by @AMADICHIMA has demonstrated to us all what is possible. I have never discussed politics with @AMADICHIMA. I respect his technical acumen and passion.

*Dr Abah is former Director General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms.

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