- Nigeria's commitment to the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative has been top notch
- Those in charge are fine-tuning ways to ensure that Nigeria is committed to the principles of transparency, accountability and citizen participation
- This is after the controversial “fantastically corrupt” statement of former UK Prime Minister, David Cameron before the anti-corruption summit in London in May 2016
The special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on justice reform, Barrister Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu, has given an update on the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative, which Nigeria signed onto in May 2016.
Nigeria signed on to the commitment in May 2016 at the famous anti-corruption summit in London where the former UK Prime Minister, David Cameron was recorded on camera describing Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt”.
President Buhari had also told foreign journalists at the sidelines of the summit that he agreed with Cameron's comment, but vowed to address the issue.
President Buhari had agreed to Cameron's statement that Nigeria is fantastically corrupt. Photo credit: news-images.vice.com
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The OGP is one of the ways the Nigerian government showed its commitment in tackling corruption.
OGP is a global initiative that encourages government to implement transparency and accountability measures as well as citizens participation in governance.
“When we signed onto it, Nigeria committed to a fiscal transparency framework, anti-corruption, access to information and citizens engagement.
“Within these thematic areas, we have open budgeting framework, we have contracting framework, we agreed on transparency in the extractive sector, transparency in revenue, as well as improving the ease of doing business.
“The other critical component is transparency in the recovery and management of recovered assets, especially stolen assets and that is why we have Civil Society Organisations as key partners in monitoring that process,” Ibekaku-Nwagwu, who is also the national coordinator of OGP in Nigeria told journalists.
She was speaking on the sidelines of the overview of the self-assessment report and progress report of the OGP held on Tuesday, December 19 in Abuja.
The event was an interactive session which reviewed the progress report presented by the national secretariat of the OGP and also focused on the role Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and the media played in the progress made so far.
The session also looked into the outstanding activities and milestones in the National Action Plan of the OGP, the CSOs responsible for each commitment, their previous role with the implementation and plans for 2018.
In September, Nigeria's federal government kick-started plans to establish a public beneficial ownership register.
In a meeting held in Abuja, key agencies of the government fine-tuned strategies for the implementation of the policy.
The meeting which was held under the auspices of the OGP had in attendance the representatives of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the Corporate Affairs Commission, the Bureau for Public Enterprises, the Security and Exchange Commission, the Federal Ministry of Justice, CSOs amongst others.
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Source: Naija.ng
ROSY CREST
Wednesday, 20 December 2017