By Ebere Agozie
The Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami says the validation of the second Open Government Partnership (OGP) National Action Plan (NAP) will strengthen the anti-corruption reforms of the present administration.
NAN reports that OGP, is a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from national and subnational governments to promote open government, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.
Malami, made this known in Abuja during the stakeholders retreat to validate the draft NAP.
“As we may all recall, OGP is a product of President Muhammadu Buhari’s commitment to strengthen anti-corruption reforms.
“Flowing from the President’s commitment at the Anti-Corruption Summit, Nigeria joined the Open Government Partnership in July 2016 as a tool to foster transparency and accountability through targeted measures.
“This means that Nigeria is determined to promote fiscal transparency, improve public procurement and open contracting, access to information, asset disclosure, citizen engagement and empowerment thereby consolidating on on-going reform efforts within and outside the public service’’.
According to Malami, `unlike the first NAP with four thematic areas and 14 commitments, the draft of the second NAP has seven thematic areas with 16 commitments taking into consideration the need to roll over outstanding commitments from the first NAP
The new thematic areas are Extractive Transparency, Inclusiveness and Service Delivery while the ones that have been retained are Fiscal Transparency, Anti-Corruption, Access to Information and Citizen Engagement.
“I am therefore confident that the second NAP Document before us has taken care of Nigeria’s contextual issues and OGP Global priorities, in the areas of impact, inclusion, participation, gender, public service communities, service delivery, health and education policies.
“So I enjoin all participants to ensure that Nigeria will achieve a validated second NAP to be presented to the President for his signature.“
He urged stakeholders to use the opportunity to plan and work together in the spirit of co-creation, as this is the only way to overcome the challenges of having a sustainable Open Government.
“I am deeply grateful to all stakeholders for your zeal and passion in the implementation of the OGP principles in Nigeria since 2016 when Nigeria signed on to the Global Initiative.
“Looking at the place of technology in OGP, I hope that more MDAs and CSOs will join the effort to make public documents and activities transparent and more accessible to the citizens.
“It is my hope that our engagement today will bring to the fore inputs driven by the quest to make quantifiable and positive impact in the lives of Nigerians, especially as it relates to participation in government’’.
Dr Tayo Aduloju, the Incoming Non-State Actors Co-Chair of OGP National Steering Committee said that the relevance of the 2nd NAP to Nigeria’s social, political and economic needs depend on the outcome of the retreat.
Aduloju, who was represented by Mrs Seun Ojo said that the value of the retreat is self-evident.
“The most important ingredient in the recipe of success is transparency, and transparency builds trust.
“This second NAP reinforces our commitment to eliminating all forms of corruption and corruption prone system.
“So we anticipate that we seek deeper, wider and more extensive collaboration, coordination and cooperation in our country to end corruption, recover the proceeds of corruption and prosecute corrupt practices.
“This action plan offers us the opportunity to have access to information legislation which will facilitate democracy.
He said that legalising access to information will ensure that citizens have access to information required to participate meaningfully in a democratic process.
“It will ensure that politicians and leaders remain accountable to citizens, as the NAP seeks to achieve revenue transparency,’’ he added.
NAN reports that the OGP provides a platform for reformers inside and outside of governments around the world to develop initiatives that promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.
It is a voluntary partnership that countries opt to join and through which civil society organizations, in collaboration with government, can advance initiatives that they deem in line with their reform agendas.
