ISSN: 2536-7455 Vol 1. No. 4 May 31, 2018 The …...Government, acting through the Minister power to...

Citizens | Parliament | Democracy ISSN: 2536-7455 Vol 1 . No . 4 May 3 1 , 2018

Get up-to-the-minute updates on the Parliament on ORDERPAPER.NG | @Orderpaper | Facebook.com/Orderpaper |

ToDay ConsTrack Edition

The Tobacco Scourge and Nigeria’s

Endangered Future

The ConsTrack

App Debuts

Citizens now empowered to track & report projects Senators, Reps can tell success stories Push for transparency & accountability

SENaTorS oN Trial: Persecution or prosecution?

2 | May 31, 2018 3May 31, 2018 | TODAY TODAY

Publisher’sNote

Hello Nigeria, welcome the ConsTrack app!

The much anticipated ConsTrack mobile app is now here for you. The narrative around public accountability and performance of elected representatives is about to witness a positive and productive change. Hitherto, it has been the norm to make blanket judgments about the

failure of government and lack of accountable stewardship from those citizens elect into public office. There has hardly been an objective measure of performance especially of members of the National Assembly who are so often vilified and scandalized sometimes, unjustifiably.

Legislators’ performance of lawmaking, representation and oversight functions which are the core mandate placed upon them, have come under spotlight since the Fourth Republic as many citizens believe the legislature is just a cesspool of scandal and no more. But truth is, there are some members of the legislature who have impressively discharged their responsibilities and are deserving of accolades and rewards of reelection or calls to higher office. So the challenge has often been how to objectively measure performance in a manner that is scientific, empirical and acceptable to both the legislators and their constituents who have the power to determine who gets elected and/or reelected into office.

This is where the ConsTrack App comes in handy. The ConsTrack app is a citizens-centric tool that details out the template of performance indicators, yardstick and score sheets of legislators with respect to the performance of their representation function. The app is built to track, report and measure implementation of constituency projects appropriated in the name of members of the National and State Assemblies of Nigeria. It is loaded with verified and validated information on the projects including amounts appropriated, level of funding, location, responsible parties and state of implementation. The best part is that citizens can from their various locations, track and report on the constituency projects of their lawmakers while the latter can themselves seize the opportunity of the open source platform to tell their own success stories and/or clarify claims made by the former. In other words, ConsTrack is a win-win solution to address the myriad of controversies surrounding constituency projects as it engenders cross-cutting interactions among all stakeholders in the governance loop.

The release of the ConsTrack App is the highpoint of a year-long project by OrderPaper Nigeria to stimulate inclusiveness, transparency and accountability in constituency projects scheme as currently practiced. It has been a process of multi-stakeholder consultations spanning the legislature, executive, civil society, media and community based groups, among others, in a bid to ensure that a mutual understanding of objectives is set and collectively pursued.

It is our hope at OrderPaper that the ConsTrack app will not only change the narrative on the performance of legislators and other public office holders but also contribute meaningfully towards a more inclusive and corruption-abhorrent public space in Nigeria. Our profound thanks go to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) which has supported us through the Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement (SACE) Project in this pilot phase of the work. The team at SACE has been greatly supportive in seeing ConsTrack succeed. It is our firm belief that the objectives of the project will succeed as the app sets off a sustained stream of engagements between people and parliament through our mobile devices.

Oke EpiaExecutive Director/Publisher, OrderPaper Nigeria

Ndume: Between constituency projects and anchor borrowers schemeSome constituents from Borno South have alleged through social

media that the senator representing the zone, Ali Ndume has been laying claim to the Federal Government/CBN Anchors Brower’s

Scheme, as his constituency project.In a series of posts on Facebook on Monday by a citizen named Adam

Yareemah Junior from Ndume’s senatorial district, the Senator was crit-icized for allegedly claiming he facilitated the programme. The citizen urged Ndume to give account of constituency funds instead of laying claim to a CBN funded project.

“Dear Ali Ndume, where is our constituency allowance?” one of the post asked, while another read “sons and daughters of southern Borno, we must get it right (in) 2019 by voting out Ndume or we end up per-ishing as slaves.”

Many other constituents also took to Facebook to express anger over the Ndume and CBN Anchors Brower’s Scheme saga.

OrderPaper contacted an indigene of Damboa Local Government Area in Borno South, Mohammed Ali Grema who revealed that Ndume organised a Town Hall meeting to take credit for the Federal Government Scheme. He further alleged that the Senator can hardly boast of a N5 million project in the zone.

It will be interesting to see the reaction of Senator Ali Ndume who in 2016 alone had budgetary allocation of over N2 billion for constituency projects. Over to you distinguished senator sir!

Got comments/questions on any of our stories? Or want to make contributions and opinions on topical national issues? Or simply want to share news tips or story ideas with us?

Kindly contact us via email: [email protected] & [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter @orderpaper; Facebook: Facebook.com/orderpaper;

Telephone: +234 -818 1765 000

Constrack trivia

DISCLAIMER:This publication is made possible by the generous support

of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of OrderPaperNG and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.


Trends&Briefs

Trends&Briefs...excerpted from OrderPaper.ng

yarima’s child marriage is ‘nobody’s business,’ says Senator

Reps urges JaMB to slash form fees by halfNorthern, southern senators square up over Buhari’s water bill

NPDC shuns Reps over N12bn oil spill compensation claimPetitionTracker: Senate orders NNPC

to compensate dismissed staff

Senate says el-Rufai desperate for loans, warns banks

oshiomhole: as governor I never oppressed anyone

Court voids Jibrin’s suspension after lawmaker ate humble pie

80% of abandoned health centres are constituency projects of legislators -NPHCDa

By TiTilope Fadare

OrDerPaPerTODay – Senator Kabiru Marafa (APC, Zamfara) has accused his female colleagues of “se-lective concern” for children who are victims of insecurity in the country.

This was in reaction to a motion moved by Senator Binta Masi (APC, Adamawa) on the 2018 Children’s Day celebration.

Marafa stated that he expected the “women, especially of this Senate, to stand up shoulder-to-shoulder with women in Zamfara State.”

To buttress his point, the Senator provided estimates of the numbers of deaths recorded, the cases of rape reported and other negative effects of insecurity rampaging through his state.

According to him, they would rath-er focus on things that are “nobody’s business.”

To illustrate this, Senator Marafa then went on to speak about a case where a Senator from the 6th Assembly, Ahmed Yerima, married a girl child.

By Bakare Majeed

OrDerPaPerTODay – The House of Representatives has called on the Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) to slash examination fees by half.

While the House commended the current Registrar of JAMB, Prof. Rasak Oloyede for the transparency in the agency, it faulted the revenue generating drive of the agency.

The decision followed a mo-tion moved by James Faleke (APC, Lagos), entitled; urgent need for review of the cost of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) application form.

He noted that the remittal of N7.8billion to the federal government purse being excess of the N12billion made from sales of Unified Tertiary Examinations (UTME) application forms for University Admission in 2017 speaks volume that the agency is now revenue generating agency.

He noted that the N7,500 (form and registration) excluding incomes from the sales of other forms such as Change of Course Forms and

By TiTilope Fadare

OrDerPaPerTODay – The Senate was on Thursday divided along regional and ethnic lines during de-bate on the National Water Resources bill from President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki who appeared eager to im-mediately pass the bill realized that it contained several contentious issues after contributors canvassed regional positions.

A major contention was the own-ership of water that passes through more than one state and is placed un-der “the use, management and control of the federal government.”

The bill also grants the “Federal Government, acting through the Minister power to protect, use, devel-oped, conserve, manage and control water resources in a sustainable and equitable manner for the benefit of all persons.”

It did not go down well with sen-ators whose states have water as their natural resource.

Sen. Gbenga Ashafa (APC, Lagos) noted that his state is currently having court issues with the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) over water ways.

According to him, matters like these are supposed to be left for the state to control “but what we find is that NIWA has extended its federal might in so many ways in controlling the navigation and all other things you need to get before you can do anything in all those areas.

“There would be need for us to identify those rivers that belong to the Federal government as well as the state if we want to avoid any problem.”

Concerning the identification of rivers that belong to the Federal Government, Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio (PDP, Akwa-Ibom), stated that it is hard to give a clearly defined boundary for water.

During this time, “noise was made in this country to the extent that they staged a protest on the streets of Abuja” and “almost whole of this chamber was pulled upside down.”

He posited that Yerima acted based on Muslim rites and the consent of the girl’s parent.

“But the issue of kidnapping is a daily thing in Zamfara State today.

Change of University Forms at the rate of N5, 000.00 each is bringing untold hardship to the people.

Faleke added that JAMB as a government agency is not set up for profit making but to promote edu-cational development of the young

That even the National Boundary Commission has not been able to de-lineate the boundaries of each state, talkless of water limits.

Senator Adeola Olamikan (APC, Lagos) held similar view expressing his reservation on the bill and advised that a committee be set up to “look into the nitty-gritty in line with the constitution and the existing act we have in hand so we can compare these two and we can be in unison while we consider these bills.”

However, Senator, Binta Masi (APC, Adamawa) argued that there are federal roads which each state benefit from and wondered why there would be an “issue about a small river in a state that has to pass through an-other river in another state and we are

By lizzy Chirkpi

OrDerPaPerTODay – The House of Representatives commit-tee on Environment and Habitat has threatened to issue a bench warrant on the Nigerian Petroleum Development company (NPDC) if its fails to appear before the commit-tee on the next adjourned date.

The threat was issued in National Assembly during a meeting held with stakeholders of Ikara communi-ty of Edo state, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) and the NPDC which failed to turn up.

The Ikara community had earlier submitted a petition to the House of Representatives committee on Public Petition against the NDPC, accusing the firm of negligence and refusal to comply on the matter of post spill impact assessment damage, clean-up remediation, restoration and com-pensation for crude oil that have de-graded Ikara community.

After consideration on the matter by the committee on Public Petition, a report was submitted to the House which resolved that the Committee

By TiTilope Fadare

OrDerPaPerTODay – The Senate has ordered the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation (NNPC) to issue retirement benefits to two dismissed members of staff, Donald Ovie and Lawrence Opiti.

The petitions were presented on the floor of the Senate by their repre-sentative, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege (APC, Delta).

Mr. Ovie was employed as a load-er and Mr. Opiti an operator in the corporation.

After the theft of petroleum products at one of the NNPC facili-ties, the Police accused three people, including the petitioners, in their in-vestigation.

The Police recommended the staff be dealt with in accordance to the civil service rules and the termi-nation of their appointment was ap-proved based on this.

However, in 2004, one of them was issued a letter of retirement in-stead of dismissal and this entitled him to receive benefits.

By TiTilope Fadare

OrDerPaPerTODay – The Senate committee on Foreign and Local debts have issued a stern warn-ing to all commercial banks and finance houses in the country to de-sist engaging in any loan transaction with the Kaduna state government.

It would be recalled that the red chamber disapproved of the World Bank loan sought by the state gov-ernment because of its high and in-creasing debt ratio.

The three Kaduna senators had supported the disapproval of the World Bank facility to the tune of USD 350 million.

The decision had resulted in ex-change of words between the sena-tors and their Governor, Nasir el-Ru-fai.

But in a related development, the Senate panel alerted the public to other means the government is taking to obtain “huge unreason-able sums of local currencies loans through Nigerian local banks.”

It also noted that it is “not un-aware of efforts by the Kaduna State Government, to negotiating with

Speaking on his tenure as a Governor, he said: “As a governor I have not oppressed anyone but power can be tempting.”

He told the lawmakers: “Given the opportunity to chair our party we must do some things differently. If anything in the newspapers to go by a lot of our party leaders have some concerns.”

After this, members of the press were ushered out as the meeting con-tinued in an executive session.

By Bakare Majeed

OrDerPaPerTODay – After resuming and apologising to be allowed back to the House, the Federal High Court in Abuja on on Thursday voided the 180-legisla-tive-day suspension imposed by the House of Representatives on a former Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin (APC, Kano).

It would be recalled that Jubrin was on September 28, 2016 and af-ter apologising to the House, he was allowed back to the House on 13th March, 2018.

Delivering judgment in the suit filed by Jibrin to challenge the sanc-tion imposed on him, Justice John Tsoho, declared the suspension of the legislator as unconstitutional and or-dered the lower legislative chamber to pay him all the salary due to him for the period he was unjustly suspended.

The judge read in part: “The sus-pension was an interruption of his earning which will be automatically restored especially when it has been decided that the action was a nullity by virtue of granting prayers 1 and 3 of the originating summons.

“When an action is declared nul-lity it is deemed that it never hap-pened.”

In his ruling, Justice Tsoho agreed with Jibrin’s lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), in holding that the lawmaker’s act act was a lawful one, and suspend-ing him because of it was an attempt to gag him.

“There is no better conclusion that the plaintiff was carrying out the mandate imposed on members by Chapter 7 (7.5) of the Code of Conduct for Honourable Members adopted on November 4, 2004,” the judge ruled.

By lizzy Chirkpi Chirkpi

OrDerPaPerTODay - The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has called on the National Assembly to devise means to halt the spate of abandoned health care delivery centres littered across the country.

According to the agency, over 80% of the abandoned centres which are worth at N10billion are initiated by the lawmakers through the zonal intervention scheme also known as constituency projects.

A director of the NPHCDA, Mr. Olajime Olayinka, who made these revelations at a hearing in the House of Representatives which held on May 24, 2018,also adduced reasons for the abandonment.

Mr. Olayinka pointed out that many health facilities in Nigeria are located in rural areas and that only 53% were completed leaving about 800 primary health facili-ties abandoned at various levels of completion.

“Many of these projects are con-stituency projects and key reasons for current state are as follows; late signing of Appropriation Act,

citizens in pursuit of their profes-sional career.

Speaking on the motion, Hassan Saleh (PDP, Benue) disclosed that as a lawmaker, he spends huge sum buying JAMB forms for students in his constituency yearly.

thinking that the federal government wants to take over.”

Senator Danjuma Goje (APC, Gombe) argued that, “the whole idea is that the federal government is the custodian of all the water resources in the country but of course you know if it is within you area, you can use it but of course will be guided.”

Giving his verdict, Saraki noted that although he had a lot of enthusi-asm in passing the bill, he feels “it is important we carry everybody along.”

He then instructed the Chairman and Vice chairman on Water resourc-es, the Chairman and Vice chairman of Judiciary as well as the Director of Legal “to go back and look at this es-pecially where there are constitutional issues and report in one week.”

on Environment should ascertain the extent of the environmental damages for the NPDC to bear 20%of the cost.

The representative of Ikara com-munity said they want the House of Representatives to assist them by prevailing on NPDC to pay adequate compensation to their people for the years of ruinous crude oil pollution and environmental degradation caused as a result of equipment fail-ure.

According to him, “it is our pas-sionate appeal that the House gra-ciously intervene in our quest for environmental justice by compelling

The Committee on Ethics and Privileges then recommended that since the punishment for one per-son was reduced from dismissal to retirement, all the others be treated the same.

The red chamber adopted the resolution when the Chairman of the Committee, Samuel Anyanwu, presented the report today.

The chamber also instruct-ed its Committee on Petroleum Downstream to ensure compliance by NNPC.

some Finance Houses to procure huge foreign Loans to the detriment of Kaduna State Government.”

The committee highlighted the “extent of desperation” on the path of the State Chief Executive who “went to town on personalizing the official disapproval of the Senate.”

It added: “The desperation of the State Government has now reached an epoch of reckless dimension as to use private Finance Companies (home and abroad) to negotiate and procure similar facilities through other mediums alternatively circum-venting the Senate.”

A statement by the committee and the three senators on Wednesday further warned that the state govern-ment is “incapable of carrying such huge debt burdens,” noting “the moral causes of a government few months from elections, with no clear identity of requisite public supports and sympathy to be re-elected aside.”

The statement also said the Kaduna state assembly was a rubber stamp of the government while re-minding them that “you are in those offices to protect the interest and in-tegrity of the people.”

incomplete funds release, poor in-formation and engagement of the people and non-alignment with existing infrastructure in those lo-cations”.

The director however said the onus is on the lawmakers because the power of appropriation and oversight lies with them.

He said: “We need to change the status of these health facilities if we are to make progress with primary health care in Nigeria. We need the cooperation of the national assem-bly to complete the uncompleted health centre projects. However, this effort has to involve everybody including the federal, state and lo-cal governments”.

Collaborating the position of Mr. Olayinka, the chairman of the House of Representatives commit-tee on Rural Development, Mr. Oladipupo Adebutu (APC, Ogun) said there were issues on constitu-ency projects because once a law-maker is not reelected the project becomes abandoned.

He therefore enjoined the pri-mary health care agency to put measures in place to complete the projects.

The chairman also requested for the list of all abandoned projects.

Also responding to the motion, Zakari Mohammed (APC, Kwara) cautioned the members from fixing a specific fee for JAMB to charge with-out knowing the exact administrative cost used in organising the examina-tion.

He added that to reduce the cost of organising the Computer Based Test (CBT), JAMB should partner with government agency such as Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and take ad-vantage of the internet broadband instead of using private mobile op-erators.

The House therefore resolved to “urge the Federal Ministry of Education to make University and other Tertiary Education accessible and affordable thus the cost of Jamb application forms and process should be reviewed downward to about 50% from the current N7,500 to not more than N3,000.

The lawmakers also urged the Federal Ministry of Education to en-sure that the cost of the other ancil-lary forms for changes must be free or at the very barest minimum of N500.

yerima

Dogara

Buhari

Saraki

Saniel-Rufai oshiomhole

Jibrin

DogaraSaraki

There is an estimated 5000 victims of rape and we have said it in this cham-ber but up till now, the women have not stood up to say enough is enough of this very bad incident.

“Whereas in the 6th assembly when my colleague and my leader, Senator Ahmed Yerima fulfilled one of his religious rites by marrying a lady with the consent of her parents almost whole of this chamber was pulled up-side down.

“That he married an underage which is nobody’s business in any-way because her parents consent to the marriage and Yerima is a Muslim and he married the girl according to Muslim rites. But so much noise was made in this country to the extent that they staged a protest on the streets of Abuja. Today, their sisters are going through hell in Zamfara, most of them victims of rape,” he noted.

He finished by mocking his coun-terparts in the North-East who “aban-doned” the North-West when they were provided a commission.

By TiTilope Fadare

OrDerPaPerTODay – Former Governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomole has held a meeting with All Progressive Congress (APC) Senators at the National Assembly, which ended in a closed-door session.

He came to declare his intention to run as the Chairman of the APC and solicit support from the Senators.

Before they began a closed-door session, Oshiomole mentioned that al-though he fought with some Senators while they served as Governors during his time in the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), it wasn’t personal.

He said: “In the forthcoming con-vention, every Senator is a delegate in his [or her] right. I confess that while in [the] NLC I fought with some gov-ernors –not against them. They under-stand that is nothing personal.

“The beauty of democracy is that there will be debate and we contest issues. Governance is about partici-pation and choosing to call ourselves All Progressives Congress shows that we are pro-people and it is driven by its members.”

you ‘ve got the power...right on your mobile phone!

Now you can track the performance of your senators and honourable members to determine their scorecard

both NOSDRA and NPDC to pay N11.7billion as compensation for the restoration and clean-up of our land”.

He said further that “Ikara com-munity’s ecological woes has been further compounded by a 28 kilome-ter stretch of clustered vegetation in the Ogba River which has continued to hinder navigation in the water-ways and cause untold hardship for the once fishing and agrarian inhabi-tants of the Ikara community.”

The representative of NOSDRA, Mr Olubunmi Akindele said all efforts by it agency to get NPDC to comply with resolution of the National Assembly has proven abor-tive.

“NPDC didn’t comply with the resolution of the house, even as a regulatory agency we have written several correspondents to them on this issue but as I speak to you no re-sponse from them.

Ruling on the matter, the chair-man of the committee, Mr Obinna Chidoka, appealed to the repre-sentative of Ikara community to be patience with committee that they would do all in their power to resolve the issues amicably.


Reports&Review

political positions, the contention is among the three senatorial districts: Kwara South where the incumbent governor hails from; the Central senatorial district where Saraki is from; and Kwara North senatorial district.

Even though the Central senato-rial district has dominated politics since return of democracy 1999, the contention in 2019 is between it and Kwara North. for the Former, it has produced 2 governors, late Muhammed Lawal (1999-2003) and Senator Saraki (2003-2011). The incumbent governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, is from Kwara South while Kwara North produced a governor in 1991 in the person of Shaba Lafiagi, who is also an incumbent senator.

is from Kwara Central but not from Ilorin but Asa local government, an outskirt of the main metropolitan.

ahmad Pategi (Kwara North)

The Chairman of the House of Representative Committee on Water Resources is another top contender for the position of the governorship in 2019, and the argument for zoning seems to be in his favor. Recently there has been calls by different groups in the state in favor of his candidature;

A few heavy weights are already positioning themselves to have the green light of Sen. Saraki, and a handful of them are lawmakers from the National Assembly and Kwara State House of Assembly. This speaks to the fact that the Senate President has built an army of young vibrant loyalists, moving them across the political board like a master chess player.

ali ahmad (Kwara South)

One of the names that contin-ues to gain some traction in the politics of 2019 is the Speaker of Kwara State House of Assembly and a former member of the House of Representatives, who also served

the latest is the former Head of Service to the Kwara State Goverment, Alhaji Muhammed Dabarako He said: “We are therefore appealing to our Leader Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki (CON), the Turakin rayan kasa Nupe to kindly give to us his milk of favour to accept /approve our nominee Hon. Aliyu Bahago Ahman Pategi as Kwara state 2019 Governorship Candidate.”

Zakari Muhammed (Kwara North)

Zakari was one of the young

as Commissioner for Justice during the first tenure of Bukola Saraki as Governor.

He was one of the earlier recruits by Saraki to replace the old guards inherited from his father’s reign. At a time the Senate President needed someone to hold the fort at the state parliament, Ahmad Ali was the sol-dier redeployed from the National Assembly. While some could look at it as demotion of some sorts, those who very familiar with Kwara poli-tics argue it was a message of faith in his ability. But for what is currently playing out, it was a move to allow Ahmad to be closer to the grassroots and build the needed support re-quired to pull the weight to succeed the incumbent governor.

loyalists enlisted by Senator Saraki when he became the spokesperson for Bukola Saraki governorship cam-paign team in 2002. He was appoint-ed Special Assistant to Governor Saraki on Youths and sport, (2003-2007), Commissioner for Sport, (2007-2009) and Commissioner for Energy (2009-2011), before he was elected into the House in 2011 and re-elected in 2015. He is also from Kwara North, so that means he could also sway the argument of rotation to his side.

By Bakare Majeed

OrDerPaPerTODay – The 2019 governorship succession race in Kwara State will likely be de-

fined by the hegemony of the Saraki political dynasty. This is unlike in many states where proxy battles be-tween members of the legislature and their governors will substantial-ly shape events. Thus, the posture and body language of Sen. Bukola Saraki, as the lord mayor of Kwara politics is very likely to determine who becomes the next governor of Kwara in 2019.

Like in many other states where zoning is a predominant factor in the choice of governorship and other

Rasak atunwa (Kwara Central)This member of the House of

Representatives served as the Speaker of the State House of Assembly before he was moved to the Green Chamber in 2015. In 2011, he was also an aspi-rant for the PDP governorship tick-et before the choice of Abdulfatah Ahmed by Saraki. Although like most of the potential aspirants, he has not declared his intention to run, but peo-ple on the ground are not ruling him out. However, there is a big disadvan-tage for him being that although he

2019 and Saraki’s hegemony in Kwara

Saraki

ahmed Pategi

ahmed

ali ahmad

Rasaq atunwa Zakari

Reports&Review

8 | May 31, 2018 9May 31, 2018 |

Parliament&ProfileTODAY TODAY

Parliament&Profile

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

Senators on trial: Prosecution or persecution?

Kogi where he stood (or slept) trial on his stretcher and was eventually grant-ed bail.

Suleiman Hunkuyi

Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi travails came from his home state of Kaduna after he learnt that his property which also served as the building of a fac-tion of the APC had been demolished in the early hours of 20thFebruary, 2018. The move was allegedly master-minded by Hunkuyi’s former ally and present Governor of the state, Nasir El-Rufai.

An apparently pained Hunkuyi then told press men in the Senate that he had to “suffer” after helping to bring governor El-Rufai to office.

Shehu Sani

The controversial and Twitter sav-vy Senator Shehu Sani was caught up in a similar case to Saraki and Melaye

as he was mentioned in a murder case in his home state of Kaduna. Sani was subsequently invited for questioning by security agents. A suspect would later confess that he was brutally co-erced into indicting Sani. Interestingly, Senator Sani has on several occasions hinted that he expects more trouble to come his way.

ovie omo-agege

Omo-Agege’s travails began on Valentine’s Day as the Delta senator accompanied by 9 others protested the passage of the electoral amendment act proposing to re-order the sequence of elections in the country. The group of ten claimed the amendment was targeted at President Buhari.

Several days later, Senator Dino Melaye put forward his name in a point of order calling for an inves-tigation into the statement that the said amendment was targeted at the President. Omo-Agege was eventually

suspended on the 12th of April 2018 for 90 legislative days.

Even though that suspension has been nullified, an appeal is still in court while the Joint Committee in-vestigating the theft of the mace on April 18 is currently investigating Omo-Agege for the role he allegedly played in the ugly incident. According to the Committee, witnesses claimed Omo-Agege helped the thugs gain en-trance into the chamber.

abdullahi adamu

Abdullahi Adamu was a member of ten Senators that protested the pas-sage of the Electoral Amendment Act in February. However, his own strug-gles have not come directly form that action. Instead, Adamu was sacked as chairman of Northern Senators Forum on the grounds of mismanagement exactly a week after he led 9 other sen-ators to speak on the amendment act.

the receiving end as much as the last couple of weeks.

In the last month, he has been ar-rested, ‘escaped’ from custody, hospi-talised, and remanded all in relation to a statement by suspects in Kogi who alleged that the Senator has been funding their nefarious activities with money and arms.

Dino has maintained innocence and insisted on being tried in Abuja but the police declared that he must be transferred to Kogi. The Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the police eventually caught up with the Kogi Senator and tried to move him to Kogi state but Dino reportedly forced his way out of a moving vehicle and got injured and eventually landed in the National Hospital.

Pictures of Senator Dino on the floor and later on a stretcher went vi-ral on social media while he was also starved for over 24 hours as no one would volunteer to give him food. SARS finally managed to get him to

the going a bit tough this year.

Bukola Saraki

The Senate President has his own unpleasant times this year as his almost forgotten CCT trial for false asset decla-ration resumed in February. However, the latest drama involving Saraki is a cultism cum murder case. According to Saraki, the Inspector General of Police who enjoys a rather frosty rela-tionship with the red chamber is trying to frame him up by altering the state-ment of some suspects involved in cult-ism and murder. Few days later, reports surfaced that the Senate President has been mentioned in a cultism/murder case by suspects arrested in his home

state of Kwara. These reports have nev-ertheless been dispelled by the Kwara State Ministry of Justice even as the Senate leadership was billed to meet with President Buhari over the matter.

Ike Ekweremadu

For someone who has served as the Deputy Senate President for over a decade, Ekweremadu has relatively been controversy-free. However, this year, he has like his boss Saraki, had to grapple with allegations related to asset declaration.

As a matter of fact, in March, a motion exparte was filed by Festus Keyamo Chambers on behalf of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel

for the Recovery of Public Property for an order to temporarily forfeit assets it alleged the Deputy Senate President did not declare with the Code of Conduct Bureau.

According to several media reports, Ekweremadu had hidden and unde-clared properties in choice areas of Abuja, London, Florida, and Dubai to-taling billions of naira. Also at the same time, Ekweremadu had to battle con-troversy surrounding his will, which he claimed was stolen and doctored to damage his image.

Dino Melaye

Senator Dino Melaye has a knack for controversy but he has not been on

By daMilola z. adeniran

OrDerPaPerTODay - All men are born equal but situations, environ-ments, and circumstances put us all on different pedestals. Undoubtedly, men who rise to become senators especially in Nigeria are in the higher echelons of the society. However, like the rest of us they have their own fair share of trou-bles and travails.

The year 2018 which is fast ap-proaching its mid-point has been less than rosy for many senators confront-ed with scandals, court cases, and alle-gations of various kinds and propor-tions. From the top brass of the senate leadership to the members on the floor, we look at the senators who have found

Saraki Ekweremadu

Melaye omo-agege


Parliament&Profile

akpan Nwaobushi

Jang Hunkuyi Sani

adamu

Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Finance as well as the Chairman of the Inter-ministerial Direct Labour Coordinating Committee that fraud-ulently awarded contracts to Jide Omokere leading to the receipt of ve-hicles as kickbacks.

Despite his plea of innocence he has remained in EFCC custody. It has been tumultuous month for Senator Akpan as earlier in May, the federal govern-ment wrote to the government of the United Kingdom (UK) requesting a ban on the senator from entering the UK, as well as a freezing of all bank ac-counts and assets associated with him.

The request was as a result of findings by the Special Presidential Investigative Panel for the Recovery of Public Property that claimed Akpan

dubiously acquired numerous proper-ties within and outside the country.

Peter Nwaoboshi

Senator Peter Nwaoboshi was ar-raigned in court for a N805 million fraud case brought against him by the EFCC. He was first arrested in April, and also spent time in prison before securing bail.

In a letter to the Senate, the Delta lawmaker lamented “humiliation” by the EFCC and called on his colleagues to come to his rescue.

Jonah Jang

Jonah David Jang is the imme-diate past governor of Plateau state

and the current Senator representing Plateau North. He is facing a 12-count charge of diverting N6.3 billion as Governor alongside a former cashier in the office of the Secretary to the State Government, Yusuf Pam.

The court remanded him in prison for several days this month as his coun-sel repeatedly failed to secure bail for him. Jang eventually secured bail and on his release from prison in Jos, he had something quite strange to say.

According to Senator Jang it was a “privilege” to sleep on the same prison bed that former President Olusegun Obasanjo slept on. Perhaps, Jang is not going through such a tough time after all. Maybe his time in prison is just an indication of future presidency, who knows?

Senator Shehu Sani swiftly added salt on Adamu’s injury when he explained the former Nasarawa governor was sacked after monkey raided his farm and carted away with N70 million be-longing to the forum.

Bassey akpan

According to reports, Senator Bassey Akpan was arrested on Tuesday 15th May and taken away into the Custody of the EFCC over his alleged receipt of vehicles worth N303 million from an oil baron, now standing trial for financial crimes.

The report accused Akpan of re-ceiving the vehicles while he was the



BillBoard

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by the Executive Director of OrderPaper Nigeria, Mr. Oke Epia. There were other visits to members of the legislature in-cluding some from the pilot states of the project.

At the level of the State Legislature, the ConsTrack Project hosted the entire lead-ership and membership of the Gombe State House of Assembly at a consultative forum in Abuja on the 6th of October 2017. Speaker of the assembly, Nasir Nono expressed the support of the assembly for ConsTrack after a briefing by OrderPaper’s executive director.

Apart from the legislature, the ConsTrack team also paid courtesy visits to executive arm of the government. On the 15th of February 2018, it met with the Director- General of Budget Office of the Federation, Mr. Ben Akabueze who de-scribed the project as “very needful and complimentary” given the mandate of

By TiTilope Fadare

Or D e r Pa P e rTO Day - The highly anticipated ConsTrack mobile applica-tion is now finally here. The

arrival of Nigeria’s most user friendly app for measuring the performance of elected representatives, especially members of the National and State Assemblies, is unargu-ably a game changer for the 2019 general elections. But the app has passed through a very robust gestation process before be-ing now available for public use.

ConsTrack is a project by OrderPaper Nigeria conceived to cut through the thick controversies surrounding constituency projects by legislators and organize cit-izens’ responses into an informed and articulated stream that engenders inclu-siveness, transparency and accountability in the scheme. The ConsTrack project, which is supported by USAID, has been implemented in a robustly inclusive stream of multi stakeholder activities that include advocacy, capacity-building, roundtables, media publications and a host of others. Under this support frame-work, the project is focused on constituen-cy projects at the national level as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja and in Lagos and Gombe States.

A lot relevant stakeholders have been consulted in the course of the project, including the Senate and House of Representatives, State Houses of Assemblies, relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of Government, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Community Based Organizations

Nigeria’s Governance Monitor: The road to the ConsTrack app

(CBOs), the media and of course the gen-eral citizenry.

advocacy calls…

With respect to advocacy, the ConsTrack Project team visited the para-mount ruler in Garki Village, Abuja in his palace on the 22nd August 2017 in a string of consultations with community leaders and CBOs. On November 27, the team visited the Senate Leader, Ahmad Lawan (APC, Yobe) in his office at the National Assembly. During the visit, Sen. Lawan reiterated the need for proper implemen-tation of constituency projects and also harped on the need for the involvement of constituents in the implementation of the scheme. Senator Kabir Marafa (APC, Zamfara) among other stakeholders in the parliament joined the Senate Leader in re-ceiving the advocacy team which was led

his office “to monitor government’s ex-penditure.” Mr. Akabueze was joined by his management team who interacted at length with the visiting team.

Prior to that, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma Udo was consulted on the 6th of February, 2018. The minister welcomed the ConsTrack project and directed further liaison with relevant departments of the ministry.

On the 15th of February, 2018, the Permanent Secretary of the Special Duties Office in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. William Alo received the project team on behalf of Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha and promised further consultations and pos-sible collaboration. Suffice to state that the Special Duties is the particular gov-ernment department responsible for monitoring the implementation of con-stituency projects of National Assembly members.

Stakeholder roundtables and exhibitions…

ConsTrack held its first event on September 7th 2017. It was a stakehold-ers’ roundtable to inform of the project, seek buy-in and chart a collective way forward. It had in attendance the Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Constituency Outreach, Mr. Bede Eke (PDP, Imo) who expressed delight at the project and pledged the commitment of the federal legislature to be part of it. Stakeholders from Civil Society Organizations, Government

In the executive arm of the gov-ernment, it is observed that the fol-lowing six ministries have the high-est allocations in the 2018 budget; Defence, Interior, Education, Health, Power, Works and Housing and Water Resources.

The amount earmarked for them are indicated thus: Ministry of Defence got N576.39 billion as against N469.84 billion in 2017 bud-get, making an additional N106.55 billion.

The Ministry of Interior gulped N576.70 billion in 2018 contrary to N536.36 billion received in 2017, an extra sum of N40.34 billion.

The Ministry of Education got an increment of N86.75 billion to its 2017 allocation of N455.41 billion, making it N542.16 billion in 2018.

The Ministry of Health headed by Isaac Adewole, received N356.45 billion in 2018 away from the 2017’s amount of N308.46 billion, a differ-ence of N47.99 billion.

Babatunde Fashola’s Ministry of Power, Works and Housing was al-located N714.66 billion in the 2018 appropriation bill while in 2017 it got N556.84 billion, an increment of N157.82 billion.

Finally, the Ministry of Water Resources, was earmarked N111.54 billion in 2017 but was jerked to N155.14 billion in 2018 with an ad-ditional N43.60 billion.

The Ministry of Power, Works and Housing holds the lion share again this year among others.

By TiTilope Fadare

OrDerPaPerTODay - The 2018 appropriation bill of N9.1 trillion passed by the National Assembly

in May showed a steady rise in allo-cations to certain arms of govern-ment as well as some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the last three years.

It is noteworthy that the National Assembly raised the budget fig-ure from the N8.6 trillion laid by President Muhammadu Buhari in November last year. The lawmakers also raised the oil benchmark from $45 to $51 per barrel to reflect the recent rise in the price of crude oil in the international market.

However, a scrutiny of the bud-get as passed reveals an incremen-tal rise in the allocations to the National Assembly from an initial N115billion in 2016 to N125billion in 2017 and now N139billion in 2018. These figures are separate from the N100billion allocated annually to members of the federal legislature for zonal intervention projects, oth-erwise known as constituency proj-ects.

Although public attention is often focused on the National Assembly, the judiciary is another arm of gov-ernment that has also enjoyed a steady increment in allocations in the last three years from N70billion to N100billion and N110billion in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively.

2018 Budget: NaSS, Judiciary, Works, others continue upward swing in allocations



Opinion

government do about social media? The daft thing to do would be to try to ban popular social media platform but the wise thing to be done would be to embrace it as a platform for effective communication and inter-action with citizens. By completely embracing social media, there would be opening up access to government that can help force positive change on the way government operates and de-velops policy. It would also be saving government time and money in the quick transmission of information that can help promote inclusiveness and transparency which strength-ens citizens goodwill towards gover-nance.

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Nigeria have also deployed a broad range of social technology driven initiatives with the intention to promote accountability and trans-parency in government. One of such initiative is ConsTrack. ConsTrack was designed to trigger and promote increased and informed citizens’ par-ticipation as well as appropriate in-terfaces with elected parliamentary representatives regarding the choice and implementation of Constituency Projects across Nigeria. The ConsTrack project is built around a mobile application deployed on

Apple and Google Play store and its overall objective is to engender transparency, accountability and in-clusiveness in Constituency Projects while setting off a massive nationwide engagement on the Constituency Project. One impressive thing about ConsTrack is that it puts the parlia-ment, an arm of government often overlooked by anti-corruption cru-saders, on the spot. ConsTrack is being implemented by OrderPaper Nigeria with support from USAID’s Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement (SACE) project. It has a social media component that pro-motes engagement and interaction with elected Representatives in par-liament.

Another technology initiative promoting democratic accountabil-ity is deployed as a website, www.buharimeter.ng. Buharimeter is an independent monitoring tool that enables citizens and political ana-lysts around the globe to evaluate the implementation of the cam-paign promises of Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), made in the prelude to the 2015 gen-eral elections. Buharimeter accord-ing to her initiators evolved out of the concern to address the challenges of

governance, civic participation and effective service delivery in Nigeria. Its central focus is to bridge the ex-isting gap between the government and the governed, thereby facilitat-ing a process through which dem-ocratic accountability becomes the norm. By analysing data gathered through multiple sources and rating the performance of the government, the platform hopes to empower Nigerians to take an active role in making the APC-led government live up to its campaign promises.

In conclusion, there are obvious-ly several ways in which technology is being used to facilitate good gov-ernance and fight corruption. Those discussed above are only a few of the several initiatives available to both governments and citizens. However, this is in no way saying that tech-nology is the only answer for the successful fight against corruption and the search for good governance – obviously, there are several others and I would like you to share your opinion on this topic with me. What are you as a citizen or government of-ficial doing to eradicate corruption in Nigeria?

Tony-Okeke, Partner at OrderPaper Nigeria can be reached via email: [email protected]

By Tony-okeke oFordile

Early this year, Transparency International (TI), the re-spected Global anti-cor-ruption watchdog, with

a mission to stop corruption and promote transparency, accountabil-ity and integrity worldwide ranked Nigeria 148th position out of 180 in her 2017 Corruption Perception Index (CPI). Nigeria also received a CPI score of 27/100. The CPI score of a country indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of zero (0) which indicates “Highly Corrupt” to 100 which sig-nifies “Very Clean”. What this woe-ful result signifies is that Nigeria as a country still has a lot to do in the fight against corruption and must urgently step up the fight and de-vise new techniques of eradicating this cankerworm. One of such tech-niques should include the deploy-ment of technological initiatives.

It was not long ago that technol-ogy devices like mobile phones were seen as luxury gadgets for entertain-ment purposes and for making fash-ion statement. However, in today’s world of technology renaissance, Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are increasingly seen by good governance activists and the organized civil society as import-ant tools to promote citizen engage-ment, transparency and accountabil-ity as well as to identify and reduce corruption all around the world in-cluding in Nigeria. While thousands of Nigerians are taking good advan-tage of their internet enabled mobile devices to promote their businesses, improve their health, grow their fi-nances, communicate with family/friends some others are developing and deploying credible mobile appli-cations that could help citizens ade-quately demand for transparency, ac-countability and inclusiveness from the government.

In 2011, new tools and technol-ogy on social media influenced the Arab Spring. Alliances formed on-line were crucial in building core groups of new activists. Social media became the popular and safest plat-form where citizens of the region could effectively exercise their free-dom of speech. It so therefore served as a convenient space for civic en-gagement. Unlike other revolutions, protesters used social media websites like facebook and twitter to effec-tively plan, mobilize, communicate, shape opinions, empower and influ-ence the change they wanted. Here in Nigeria, events like Occupy Nigeria and Bring Back Our Girls move-ments, both socio-political protests driven on social media, have shown how technology opens up new possi-bilities for citizens to demand change and public accountability which di-rectly fights corruption. The ques-tion now is what should the Nigerian

Using Technology to Fight Corruption and Promote Good Governance

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Assembly Committee on Appropriations, Mr. Solomon Jisimah and representatives of Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC), among others.

The ConsTrack project also par-ticipated in USAID’s Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement (SACE) project’s Annual Learning Summit (ALS) which took place at Ladi Kwali Hall, Sheraton hotel, Abuja from 20th to 22nd of September 2017. The summit was a three and a half- day workshop which brought together grantees of USAID SACE in a bid to evaluate and measure the progress of their projects.

The 2018 Open Data Day marked worldwide on the 3rd of March 2018 presented an opportunity to engage on

ConsTrack as the project engaged and sensitized community folks on the place and use of data for constituency proj-ects. The event was supported by Open Knowledge Network (OKN) as part of a string of other events it supported world-wide on same day.

On the 7th of May, 2018, OrderPaper Nigeria participated in the Open Government Partnership (OGP) week to showcase the ConsTrack project to a myriad of stakeholders which attended the week-long events.

The media has also included in the buildup process to the launch of the ConsTrack mobile app. The ConsTrack radio series on Raypower network, Radio Nigeria and Progress FM in Gombe have

agencies such as the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), CBOs, IT experts and members of the fourth estate of the realm were also in attendance.

The next event was a budget review retreat which took place on the 20th of September 2017 with the aim of iden-tifying, verifying and validating proj-ects captured within the benchmark fiscal year (2016) for the federal bud-get and pilot states. The meeting had in attendance the Deputy Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Mr. Chris Azubogu, former Deputy Speaker Adamawa State House of Assembly, Sunday Peters, Chairman of the Gombe State House of

been quite impactful. This print publica-tion produced and circulated monthly has also been a veritable platform for en-gaging on the project.

awards and recognitions…

It is of interest to note that just around the kickoff of the project; ConTrack re-corded a milestone achievement on the 2nd of September 2017 when ConsTrack won the inaugural Tech4Dev Contest conducted by Chemonics International. Out of 28 experiences and 10 new ideas from around the world, ConsTrack emerged winner of the New Ideas cate-gory and was awarded at a ceremony in Washington DC in September 2017.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13


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Saleh lawan (Gombe)

From Biliri, I am yet to see anything from my representative.

auwal Muhammed (Gombe) Our legislators don’t carry out any

project back home with the allocations they receive, God should help us.

abba Bungalo (Gombe)

keke napep, no grinding machine, no sewing machine, and not a single per-son has received any form of skill ac-quisition training.

Gambo adaniya (Gombe) I have gone round markets in villag-

es and I am yet to see the benefit of all these allocations.

aliyu Bako (Gombe)

We have seen nothing in Gombe Central.

Muhammad Suleiman Bolari (Gombe)To be honest Senator Bayero Nafada

has done nothing for us in Gome north.

Nasiru Usman Baraya (Gombe)Honestly we have not seen this

projects leading to poverty and that is why youths are into stealing and drug abuse because of the refusal of law-makers to work with their constituency allowance.

yakubu Bangu (Gombe)I am from Balanaga and our senator

has done none of the listed projects. I don’t even know we have a senator.

Kumo (Gombe)In Gombe central, I have not seen a

single keke napep or heard of anyone that received such.

yusuf (Gombe) I am from Kaltungo and our

Senator has worked and we can see all the projects you mentioned but only a few keke have been distributed.

audu (Gombe)

Goje has worked for us.Abubakar Muhammad, Gombe Honestly, the Senator representing

us in Gombe North, Bayero Nafada has not done anything.

auwal Muhammad (Gombe) We the people of Zamfarawa in

Yemaltu Deba have not seen a single

Our senator did the projects you mentioned.

yasir yakubu (Gombe) Honestly, they have not used this

allocation for the intended projects. No one has received keke napep or books for school children. The sena-tors should as a matter of urgency tell us how they have spent these monies.

topic you have brought this evening. There is something Mr. Yunusa said that these people are not using the money they way it is supposed to be. We are a situation where there is no light or borehole which we have ta-bled these issues to our area council. Even our senators. Up till now, nothing they have done. So I want to say, these

people are not using

Sani (Benue state)Our God would re-

ward them. Let them continue. One day, they must leave the place.

Tanko (Gwagwalada) I want to appreci-

ate the presenter for the opportunity given by the radio station. What I have in mind. How will one differentiate the previous constituency projects and the current constituency projects?

Umaru (Mowe, lagos) People do not know

where this allocation is going to. People are suf-fering. No light, No hos-pital, nothing. I am just wondering if you look at the amount budgeted every year, what are they doing? People are not happy. So, they should

do something. Hon. Samson Okwu. He has been the representative (for my federal constituency) for the past 8 years. When I went around, I saw how people are just suffering for all of these. The hospital there, since I was born, there is nothing, there is no pharma-cist, no generator and every year, they come back and promise this or that. Maybe when they come back, they give the constituents, Maggi or ten naira

and so they keep voting. It hurts some of us because we are here, we look at how these are turning around; we look at television and listen to the radio ev-ery day. How can you be working for 8 years and you cannot give them elec-tricity which is bad.

abu Thomas (Ipaja, lagos) What really are constituency proj-

ects? The role of the legislators in con-stituency projects?

Danjuma adamu Isiyaku (Gombe)Honestly, we the people of Gombe

Central we didn’t know all this (sums of money). Since Usman Bayero Nafada became a Senator, he has not visited or sent us anything. Nothing has been done for us; please help us talk to him.

Tasiu (Gombe) To say the truth, our Senator has

tried his best by giving us solar pow-ered boreholes, he is a good man.

Mallam Usman (Gombe) For us, we can only say God help us

as nothing has been done for us. My prayer is that God should keep us till 2019.

audu Makaniki (Gombe)I can only say Goje has worked for

us.

auwal Pantami (Gombe) Nothing has been done for us by

Nafada, and if there is anything, he should explain to us.

Below is a set of curated re-sponses and feedback from callers on the ConsTrack radio programmes on

Raypower network, Radio Nigeria (Kapital FM) and Progress FM, Gombe in the last three months:

Nweke (yenagoa, Bayelsa state)

From the money you people men-tioned here, you can’t correlate with the projects on ground with the mon-ey. Not much project is going on com-pared to the money mentioned. I am in Bayelsa although I know my repre-sentatives in Enugu, if you look at it; the boreholes are not much compared to the money you are saying. It is a lot of money.

Kalu (Ilasa- Mushin, lagos state)I don’t know much about the sen-

ator representing me but I would tell you about the representatives member, Ayinla Bolaji Yusuf in Mushin federal constituency 2 because we have not been seeing anything. I remember maybe two years ago when they started this administration, he did something like a youth empowerment in which everything they shared was based on their party members, it doesn’t circu-late. Apart from that one, he has not even done anything; you can’t even get in touch with them, no means of communication to these people. When it gets to election, we would see them. We are not seeing anything yet and that is the fact.

Christopher (Jikwoyi, abuja)I am from Benue senatorial zone

C. To be honest with you in terms of our lawmakers, I have not seen any impact that they have done on the masses. In terms of projects, I travel home. I returned last Monday to be honest with you I am ashamed of my-self that someone is representing me at the federal government level. There is nothing on ground. If you even go to the streets, there is nothing like bore-hole. My people are still drinking from the river in this modern age. People are drinking from gutter. You cannot wear your white shirt on the street because everywhere is so dusty. They are not representing anybody; I only see them as public investors. They are not there for the masses. They are there for their own selfish interests.

Soji (abuja)We need to be more careful because

so many people would be calling and they don’t know what they are talking about. I listened to one who said Hon. Ayinla has not done anything in his constituency. You need to send your investigators to look at what is actually happening before they would call and be saying all sorts of things. There are a lot of them that are actually working. There is no doubt some of them are not doing anything. Majority of them are doing something tangible

Solomon (abuja)

I want to appreciate you for this

Vox pop: Feedback from citizens on constituency projects

Bayero Nafada

Hon. yusuf ayinla

Sen. David Mark

Danjuma Goje

Jega Saraki

Hon Samson okwu

about fighting corruption in Nigeria.”Giving his remarks, Saraki point-

ed out that the National Assembly is equally involved in the fight against corruption, and it would not shield members who are found wanting.

He said: “If he has those kinds of evidences, he should bring it for-ward. Because to say that, is to suggest that every member of the national

assembly is part of this even those who are not part of this are condoling this action which is far from the truth.

“I think what Professor who is respected should come out and men-tion these kinds of members he is aware of. If he can’t come out and name then he should not make such branding statements.

“Going forward to all

distinguished and respected Nigerians, in issues that have to do with the institutions and a parlia-ment, if there are cases like this, we have always said that we are not go-ing to cover up for anybody and fu-ture accusations, they should name them and see what the institution would do in trying to ensure that the necessary sanctions are taken.”

By TiTilope Fadare

OrDerPaPerTODay – The Senate has react-ed strongly to allegation by former Chairman of

the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Attahiru Jega, that members of the National Assembly are bribe collectors.

Senators, including Senate President, Bukola Saraki, expressed embarrassment at the claim and called on Jega to substantiate it. Prof. Jega had made the sweeping allega-tion while delivering a lecture on de-mocracy day on Monday.

President Muhammadu Buhari, Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara were present at the event.

Senator Isa Misau (APC, Bauchi) who was also in attendance at the event, said the embarrassment he felt was huge because his fellow ECOWAS parliament members who watched the lecture questioned him about the validity of the statement.

Speaking in a point of order today, Misau declared that Nigerians should be cautious when making such state-ments, noting that it “is very weighty because that programme was televised live. The thing they need to under-stand is that these live programmes are watched around the world.”

He urged Professor Jega “to throw more light on what he said” and “be bold enough to mention the com-mittee chairmen especially when it is

Senate dares Jega to name bribe-collecting senators


Special ReportSpecialReport

tobacco kills more than seven mil-lion people each year. In that report, Nigeria was among the low and mid-dle-income countries that accounts for 80 per cent of tobacco-related sicknesses and deaths. Statistics from the Federal Ministry of Health in 2017 also showed that 4.5 million Nigerians consume 20 billion cig-arettes yearly. This means that 5.6 percent of Nigerians, consisting of 4 million men and 500,000 women, smoke cigarettes, while another 6.4 million others are exposed to to-bacco smoke. Other health statistics show that cigarette smoking is injuri-ous to nearly every organ of the body leading to various diseases. It has been established for instance, that smokers are more likely to develop

Sometime ago, two members of the House of Representatives, Sergius Ogun and Albert Adeogun moved a motion on the need to Increase tax-es on tobacco as a means of curbing tobacco use.

Tobacco industry as powerful lobby

The cigarette industry is a multi-billion dollar industry all over the world, with powerful lobbyists who represent their interest against government regulations. The lobby by tobacco companies is also some-thing Nigeria is not immune to. The tobacco industry like anywhere in the world enjoys economic ad-vantage argument. In 2001, British America Tobacco (BAT) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Nigerian govern-ment that included the building of a $150 million state-of-the-art cigarette factory in Ibadan the cap-ital of Oyo State in southwest part of the country. It was an event that then President Olusegun Obasanjo described as “a significant and trail-blazing initiative which investors should emulate.” The factory began full operations in 2003 while another factory in Zaria, Kaduna state that is capable of producing 7,200 sticks per minute was also upgraded by BAT. A source at the Ministry of Health confided in OrderPaperNG under condition of anonymity that the in-fluence of the tobacco companies is enormous.

heart disease, stroke and lung can-cer. It can also cause emotional and psychological problems such as ab-senteeism. Unfortunately, Nigerian children are not shielded from this disturbing tobacco menace. A state-ment from the Ministry of Health last year revealed that about 303,000 Boys and 67,000 Girls under the age of 18 smoke cigarettes daily in the country.

Tobacco and legislative interventions

The legislature has tried in the past to protect citizens in general and children in particular from the harmful effects of smoking tobac-co. One of the major steps taken in

anti-smoking lobby step up their game

The position of the anti-smoking crusade is that tobacco companies are working assiduously to frustrate the implementation of the National Tobacco Control, (NTC) Act. The delay in the full implementation of the NTC law is being exploited by the

that regard is the enactment of The National Tobacco Control Act in 2015. Some of the specific aspects of the law that seeks to protect children include: Prohibition on the sale of cigarette to persons under 18; pro-hibition on the sale of cigarette in single stick; prohibition on smoking in public places including schools; prohibition on the sale of tobacco products within a 1,000 meter radius of places designated as non –smok-ing; and stipulation that warning la-bels and health messages must cover at least 50 per cent of the principal display areas.

Despite the lofty intentions of the Act, implementation has been a chal-lenge and both the legislative and the executive arm of government have

tobacco industry working in tandem with some politicians while aggres-sively targeting the huge youth pop-ulation in the country for consump-tion of their products. This assertion was made by Mr. Philip Jakpor, Head of Media, Environmental Rights Action, a non-governmental or-ganization that champions the an-ti-smoking course. Mr. Jakpor who

By lizzy Chirkpi, TiTilope Fadare, daMilola adeniran and Bakare Majeed

OrDerPaPerTODay – Tobacco smoking in-volves smoking tobacco products, especially cig-

arettes. The practice which origi-nated from North America has now become a world-wide phenomenon. On the occasion of this year’s world no tobacco day which is marked May 31st of every year, it is trite to say that tobacco smoking has wreaked havoc on the health and wellbeing of mil-lions across the world.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) report in 2017 showed that

alluded to this fact. Two years after the bill was assented to by ex-Pres-ident Goodluck Jonathan, Senator Oluremi Tinubu in a motion on the floor of the Senate last year, ex-pressed worry over the exposure of school children to tobacco products. She alleged that there is a deliberate ploy by tobacco companies to situate tobacco adverts and signs within 100 metres of schools to stimulate chil-dren and youth into early interest in the use of tobacco products. There are two bills on proposed amend-ment of the National Tobacco Act in the House of Representatives. One was sponsored by Mr. Mohammed Monguno (APC, Borno) and the amendment is intended to block any lacuna that tobacco industry usually exploits. According to Mr. Monguno, “the Act is silent on the purpose of the tobacco control fund, its uses, management and administration. The bill provides an answer to the purpose of fund and how it should be managed.” He also stressed that the proposed amendment prohibits tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

On his part, Mr. Dickinson Tarkir (APC, Benue) who sponsored an amendment bill, sought to vest the implementation of the National Tobacco Control Act in the hands of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and control (NAFDAC). However, Mr Tarkir told OrderPaperNG that he was no longer interested in pursuing the bill.

World no-tobacco day: Children, smoking and Nigeria’s future

Buhari Jonathan

obasanjo

Sen. Tejuoso

Remi Tinubu



rushes to teaching hospitals. With this, the primary health centre would now be busy and the health workers would be happy to work there because they would have the money to sustain whatever they are offer-ing Nigerians from that location. It would also make our health workers more inter-ested to work in the rural areas because they know there is more money to be made for them if they are ready to work.

Would this continue in subsequent years?

Yes, it is a minimum contribution. It is like a grant. It is not like the health capital budget. This year for example, the amount is about 55 billion, if they spend 40 billion out of it this year; they have a balance that they can move to next year. It is not going to go back to the TSA account like the normal budget. So the money is a minimum. The government can next year decide to make it 2% or 3%, the law makes it a minimum of 1%. So we hope that that would be able to be the game changer of health sector in Nigeria. Also now, we are now going pass the amend-ment of the national health insurance bill to ensure that every Nigerian puts some-thing into National health insurance and every Nigerian would be able to go to any clinic and would have basic health care provision. At least 100 million Nigerians can afford N200 every month to put into this NHIS that is about N20 billion naira a month, in a year it is about N240 billion, it is much more than the health budget of the last five years. We have about 200 million Nigerians, we are targeting 100 million, people that cannot afford let’s say 60 million; we can still afford the same service.

What viable measures need to be tak-en for us to have better health care deliv-ery and reduce medical tourism?

We need to make Nigerians renew their confidence in the health sector of Nigeria. Because they go to India, UK, Europe because they don’t have confidence

in what the health sector is offering them. That will take us some time but we have to see the efforts the government is putting in to ensure that the hospitals and clinics are actually given the minimum positive service. We intend to also introduce some call centres that will be linked to the na-tional assembly so that any Nigerian can phone in, complain about any hospital, any health service required. We shall be launching that shortly to ensure that the number is available to everyone and an email so that we can monitor complains you have.

Once the doctors, nurses know that they are being watched by Nigerians, and they know you can report them. They will gradually sit up and we will have improve-ments in what they are offering Nigerians.

What about equipment lacking in our hospitals?

The problem with people going abroad is not because of equipment. We have a lot of MRI machines in Nigeria. Some of our doctors cannot even interpret the re-sults because of lack of experience. Most of our doctors that should be teaching the students, as soon as they finish from the teaching hospitals, they graduate and after one or two years they have gone to the UK or America or Dubai. So who will teach our doctors? So we want to attract our doctors back. First of all we are con-sidering looking at the salary structure of Nigerians to be able to compare it, with what is obtained internationally so that our doctors will not be looking for greener pasture. You can blame a doctor for leav-ing Nigeria when he collects a salary of $2,000 in Nigeria when they can give you $10,000 in UK.

We will strive to see how their salary can be improved so that they will be able to stay in Nigeria so that the environment where they are working is conducive, they have to consider power, also updating their equipment to be current, so there are so many things we need to work on but let us make sure that the basic is working to

make sure that primary health centers – the average Nigerian that cannot afford to go to the UK, ok? Let us take care of them first. Medical tourism? We will sort that out later.

Is there anything Senate has done to resolve JOHESU strike?

Immediately the strike was an-nounced, we invited the leadership of JOHESU, they came to have a meeting here and my colleagues in the committee. We first of all told them, look, you cannot be doing things without carry us along. The time they started discussing with the executive, they should have been copying so we know what is going on. So it is not when it has gotten to a strike situation that they will be involving the national assem-bly. So this is one mistake that must not continue.

Secondly, they gave us the reason for the strike, eight months ago. There was an agreement between the JOHESU guys and ministry of health which was signed by both parties to implement certain things in form of their payment and to me that is the first thing we need to address because the two of them agreed on those figures and on those payments. I called the minister to see how we can at least fulfill the signed agreement. I believe this bud-get that has delayed has contributed to the non-implementation of the payment.

What is your opinion on the rancor-ous congresses of your party, the APC?

This is a very young party, this our first taste of government. You can’t expect to be perfect just like that. Most importantly everyone wants to be on the winning side. So everybody wants to come to APC. The different people, strange-bed fellows try-ing to come together under one umbrella, of course they have to adjust to themselves. So it is part of their adjustment. If you say out of 36 states, you have success in 30, I think it is a pass mark. So we are work in progress. What is important is that at the end of the day we solve the problem.

Can you elucidate on the 1% health fund reflected in the 2018 budget?

1% of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the country is to be added to the health budget of Nigeria in this 2018 fiscal year. The health bill was signed into law in 2014 by former President Goodluck Jonathan and every year, it has been im-possible to obey that law, either by omis-sion or not enough effort. But we thank God since I got into the Senate and was nominated to be the Chairman of the Committee on Health, I looked at every-thing I inherited and I decided that it is not just to be introducing new bills and new laws when there are so may laws that we have not obeyed. So if I can concentrate my efforts so that the main game changer for health sector in Nigeria is this one percent, if we can make it happen. With this one percent, we know that the government of Nigeria would have some money set aside to pay for the health issues of about 3,000 Nigerians in each local government. Once they come to the local government prima-ry health centre, with this fund, the centre has enough money to maintain it and pay its staff. They would be on their own a pri-vate sector health institution.

So all these issues of general strike won’t pertain to them because they are getting their money end of the month any-way. Imagine 3,000 Nigerian patients that are being catered for by a fixed amount and they would have enough money to have enough drugs, enough money to pay the nurses, doctors and all those working with them. In addition, we have part of the money used to revitalize the primary health centres itself. Part of the money would be used to stock the health centres with vaccines for children. If you have about 10,000 health centres in Nigeria, maybe about 4,000 are functional, with this, we would strive to have all of them functional and to ensure that any Nigerian within 5 kilometers to wherever he or she is living, there would be an health centre to go to.

Then most importantly, our tertiary institutions, the teaching hospitals, they would have less pressure. As of today if you have headache you go to the teaching hospital. Teaching hospitals are supposed to be for bigger challenges, diseases and teach our medical officials to be better. But because of the pressure and the failure of the primary health sectors, everyone

SENaToR laNRE TEJUoSo is the Senator representing ogun central in the National assembly. He is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health. In this interview with orderPaperNG, the senator bares his mind on a number of issues such as the lingering strike by health workers, the new health fund scheme, increased medical tourism, and some political issues. Excerpts by TITIloPE FaDaRE:

How we can tame medical tourism, brain drain –Tejuoso

Tejuoso

OntheSpot

abuse in the country, Senator Tejuoso said: “You already said it is an abuse. You know tobacco is not good for your health. Even the people selling it they advertise it on their products that it is not good for your health. What more can we say. The advice would be they should obey what the people selling it are saying which is, it is not good. The people selling it wrote it on their box. If you go to their adverts on the billboard, they say, ‘this thing we advise you, it is not good for your health.’ When they tell you again, the person you are giving money and you continue, you just have to go to church for prayers. Let us just pray for them that they listen to people who sell the products.”

lessons of world no tobacco day

As the world celebrates No-Tobacco day today, four days after celebrating children’s day, all hands must be on deck to deal with tobacco smoking among kids. A multi-fac-eted approach involving parents, child-care givers and government might be our best bet to achieving positive results. The parents are the first point of contact to a child and it is not uncommon to hear about kids experimenting smoking at home ei-ther through actual cigarette, papers or sticks. In view of this, parents must be diligent in observing and controlling what their children watch on TV and consume on the internet.

Schools also have a major role to play. Many cases of child smoking can be traced to peer-pressure by classmates in school, which means that schools must deliberately teach the dangers of tobacco smoking and strongly rep-rimand students caught in the act of smoking cigarette.

Furthermore, government at all levels must show more seriousness in protecting the Nigerian child by aggressively implementing and enforcing the National Tobacco

Control Act. For instance, accord-ing to Section 16, article 2 of the act, persons who sell tobacco cigarette to children under the age of 18 are lia-ble to one year jail term or a fine of up to 200,000 naira or both. The gov-ernment might have to also evolve policies to discourage tobacco pro-duction not minding the economic effect. After all, children are the lead-ers of tomorrow, and no sacrifice can be too much too pay for their health and wellbeing.

spoke to OrderPaperNG in a tele-phone chat said the theme for this year’s tobacco day which is ‘tobacco and heart disease’ is apt. According to him, “the youths are our target, because we already have a genera-tion of tobacco smokers dying off. So tobacco companies are recruiting tobacco smokers who will carry on why they are looking for more people who will drive the business of smok-ing.” He also blamed the authorities for the non-enforcement of the to-bacco law, particularly the aspect which prohibits smoking in public places. He said government was also nonchalant over the growing num-ber of social bars mostly patronized by young persons and of course the tobacco companies harp on these windows to portray and sample their products. He said “the facts still re-mains that tobacco companies are targeting our youths. My organi-zation presented a report last year which shows that the tobacco com-panies deliberately tie their points of sales near schools; this is a strategy of wooing the younger generation especially when they see these ciga-rettes near them. Mr. Jakpor there-fore appealed to the government to fully implement the law while calling on the National Assembly to urgent-ly amend various sections of the law that gives advantage to the tobacco companies. “For instance, Designate Smoking Areas (DSA) should be completely expunged. We don’t want designated smoking areas, we want a total ban of smoking of cigarettes in public places”, he reiterated.

Intervention by the Buhari administration

The executive branch of govern-ment through the Federal Ministry of Health has also sensed the danger that Nigerian children face from to-bacco smoking. Hence, the ministry commenced a #NoTobacco4Kids campaign last September. The so-cial-media based campaign has however, not achieved much as ciga-rette sellers continue to brandish the product to minors with minimum fuse. The call for tax raise on tobac-co appears to have been heeded as President Muhammadu Buhari re-cently approved an amendment to the excise duty rates for alcoholic beverages and tobacco with effect from Monday, 4th June, 2018.

a matter for prayers too

In an interview with OrderPaperNG on the issue, the Chairman Senate Committee on Health, Olarenwaju Tejuoso (APC, Ogun) called for prayers for tobacco addicts since they have failed to heed to the warning signs on Cigarettes packs. Speaking on the substance’s

Hon. Monguno

Special Report

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19


Opinion

ElectionObservatory

By Laz Apir

in government including presidents and heads of governments. When the citizens are duly informed of the gross abuse of office, corruption or breach of trust by their elected representatives, they can damn the other provisos and take to the street in civil actions that shut down the state to the point that only the resignation of the accused of-ficial can restore order. Egypt, Tunisia, Yugoslavia, Mauritius to mention a few, have had their leaders resign from of-fice. Again, we are never angry enough in Nigeria to make an elected official respect us enough to resign from office.

What must we begin to do different to end the four-year evil of waiting un-til the next election?

My simple answer will be ConsTrack. Let me explain how: In Nigeria, citizens in general and the electorates in particular have consis-tently failed to demonstrate a positive correlation between their electoral choice and their knowledge of the can-didates’ antecedents. What it means is that an individual who is an abysmal

failure in every previously held respon-sibility ends up on the ballot paper and is elected. Before you draw your sword for my pound of flesh, kindly explain to me why politicians who were previ-ously elected as governor of their states, who completely failed on every count except enrich themselves to the point of becoming billionaires are the elec-torate’s favorite for senate election.

Truth is that most electorates in Nigeria base their voting choices on ev-erything but track record of the candi-date. And would you blame them when they are daily confronted by daunting challenges ranging from as basic as feeding to existential threats? Keeping track of these powerful individu-als who buy up media spaces to give themselves accolades is not easy. On the average, a poor, hungry and frus-trated electorate who pays twenty naira to glance through the national daily at the vendor’s stand trust the source and once the trusted sources have nothing but accolades for the politicians, how is he to doubt that and not vote the same

person in the next election? However, with a user friendly plat-

form like the ConsTrack mobile App, the over 40 million smart phone users across Nigeria can recast the narrative in the quest to demand accountability from their elected representatives. Such a platform fosters a direct interaction between the electorates and their rep-resentatives in government. Such en-gagements have the potency of stirring collective civil action should the citi-zens confirm for a fact that their elect-ed representatives are negligent of de-velopment to their communities. With a tool like ConsTrack, citizens can be properly informed which will warrant informed actions such as recall of their representatives in parliament, demand for impeachment of elected officials or petition to anti-graft agencies of any corrupt official siphoning funds meant for development of their communities.

And ultimately, with the ConsTrack mobile App, even if citizens still have to indulge and endure the four-year evil, they will go into the next election properly informed on performance of all those seeking re-election. Election or not of any candidate should then be based on their track record.

What I find most interesting about the ConsTrack mobile App is that ev-eryone with a smart phone can down-load the app and stay informed even if they are not on ground in their constit-uencies to actively track projects them-selves. They are able to follow constitu-ency projects of interest to them and be duly informed about the status of such projects. That’s what I call a veritable citizen tool for ensuring transparency and demand for accountability!

If we cannot recall or impeach or force any elected official to resign from office before 2019, let us at least go into the next general election properly in-formed such that we are able to send bad leaders packing. Get engaging on ConsTrack…Do this for God and country!!!

One of the strong measures of a true democracy is the periodic opportunity for citizens as electorates, to

sack or retain their representatives in government through the ballot. The in-herent weakness and disservice in this periodic nature of election is that often, citizens tend to go to sleep with the no-tion that nothing can be done until the next election cycle. Relatedly, the elect-ed representatives in government who should know better also unfortunately exhibit same crass ignorance by badly performing and still completing their four-year term of office.

Summarily, this quagmire can be blamed squarely on ignorance on the part of the citizenry, occasioned by misinformation, disinformation and on the extreme, complete absence of information. People will only act based on what they know and understand to be available to them. Our govern-ment institutions as well as our repre-sentatives in government are not too keen on providing such knowledge to the citizens probably because they are greatly benefitting from the subsisting docility and collective amnesia of the citizenry.

In a democracy, elected officials can be removed before the end of their stat-utory term of office. And whilst this is not completely alien in Nigeria, it has never been at the behest of the citizens. A precedence that has now led to the limiting mindset that elected officials can only be removed at the end of their term of office at the next electoral cycle. This is not true!

Democratic governance has very amazing provisos that check elected representatives. For starters, there is a provision for electorates to recall their representative in parliament. What this proviso means is that a senator, House of Representatives member, State as-sembly member or councilor can be removed from office by the electorates that elected them in the first place. In Nigeria, this provision remains a mi-rage as no single parliamentarian has been removed through the recall pro-viso. Reasons range from flawed judi-ciary that allows for all manner of in-hibitions to an INEC that is burdened with too much to do that they end up doing very little and the only basic duty of election conduct.

There is the impeachment proviso which enables the removal from office of elected executives. This however, rests in the hands of elected parliamen-tarians and not directly with the elec-torates. And being the society that we are, this too has been abused to the ex-tent that governors have been removed in dramatic circumstances that leaves even the generality of the electorates shell shocked as their opinions are not really sought. Still, it clearly elucidates the fact that citizens don’t have to en-dure the four-year evil of unresponsive leadership in government.

There is also the collective civ-il action of nonviolent disobedience which in sane climes have led to the resignation of elected representatives

Citizens and performance-based electoral choices

National assembly Complex

Ballot boxes

and promising as the current effort by Orderpaper Nigeria. Orderpaper Nigeria is Nigeria’s premier multi-platform orga-nization dedicated to reporting, tracking and archiving activities of the legislature for the digital age and operating virtual/actual platforms that facilitate citizen in-teraction/participation in the legislative process.

Determined to mitigate the challeng-es in the administration of the constitu-ency project scheme and help catalyze improved governance in the scheme, Orderpaper Nigeria designed and launched in 2017 an innovative program called “ConsTrack.”

ConsTrack is designed to trigger and promote increased and informed citizens’ participation as well as appropriate inter-faces with legislators regarding the choice and implementation of Constituency Projects across Nigeria. The program is built around a mobile application, “ConsTrack App” and its overall objective is to engender transparency, accountabil-ity and inclusiveness in Constituency Projects administration while setting off a massive nationwide engagement in the scheme. The ConsTrack App has recently been released and is now available to be downloaded from Playstore and Apple Store into mobile devices like phones, tablets, laptops, etc.

Worthy of note and commendation is that the initiative, ConsTrack, and the ConsTrack app were both designed, developed and are being executed by Orderpaper Nigeria with support from USAID’s Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement (SACE) project. The partnership between Orderpaper Nigeria and USAID’s Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement (SACE) project has unleashed invaluable dividends of synergy, collaboration and innovation in the execution of the ConsTract program.

For the first time in Nigeria, an app

has been developed that is dedicated to improving governance arrangements around the Constituency project scheme in Nigeria. Specifically, the ConsTract App is a powerful, unique, user friendly app that provides an online platform to advocate, instill and promote transpar-ency, accountability and a sense of in-clusiveness in the constituency project scheme in Nigeria.

The ConsTrack App is uniquely de-signed to empower constituents as well as their legislators in very specific and vital ways that adds value to the constituen-cy project scheme. With the ConsTrack App, constituents’ have a safe and effec-tive platform through which they can make their voices heard by making rec-ommendations about preferred projects; reviewing and commenting on projects that are already approved, executed or in the process of implementation; inter-rogating their legislators performance regarding the effective implementation of constituency projects and; verifying appropriations and constituency projects approved for individual legislators; The ConsTrack App is equipped with a user friendly interface that empowers constit-uents to report directly from constituen-cy project sites by uploading photos and videos as well as posting associated com-ments related to ongoing or completed constituency projects. This affords con-stituents the opportunity to participate fully in the administration of constitu-ency projects and to hold their legislators accountable for the effective execution of approved projects.

Legislators, at the National Assembly and the State Houses of Assembly also have significant benefits to reap from using the ConsTrack App. With the app, legislators are able to maintain commu-nication and interaction real-time online with their constituents even when they are not physically in their constituencies;

provide regular updates to their constitu-ents about upcoming, ongoing and com-pleted constituency projects; solicit useful feedback from their constituents; upload photos and videos of ongoing and com-pleted constituency projects; discounte-nance rumours and falsehoods by pro-viding clarity on constituency projects and their utility; mobilize constituents for greater support, participation, under-standing and synergy.

Overall, the ConsTrack App effective-ly addresses the urgent need for a por-table, verifiable and accessible informa-tion/database on constituency projects with regards to location, actual funding and true status of implementation. In so doing and by also increasing citizens’ participation, the app simultaneous-ly mitigates the high incidence of poor project execution, misapplication of con-stituency allowance and in some cases, zero execution of constituency projects. Illustratively, therefore, the Constrack App presents a compelling example of a civil society initiative that engenders a win- win outcome. It is a win for elected representatives and their constituents; it is a win for democracy and good gov-ernance; it is a win for civil society and donor partners and it is indeed a win for infrastructural development in Nigeria.

In theory, the overarching prem-ise of the ConsTrack App is the need to inculcate and improve fundamental principles of good governance in the ad-ministration of the constituency project scheme. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation defines governance as “the provision of the political, social and economic goods that a citizen has the right to expect from his or her state, and that a state has the responsibility to deliver to its citizens.” Understandably, for good governance to thrive, it has to be undergirded by critical institutions of governance like the legis-lature which must manifest fundamental governance principles such as transpar-ency, inclusiveness, accountability and participation.

Experts believe that governance mat-ters for sustainable development because it holds the key to building stable and se-cure societies and drives inclusive growth over the long term. Fair, reliable, and ac-countable governing institutions like the legislature must work hard to build trust between people and government. Such institutions need to be free of corrup-tion. They must encourage meaningful engagement and participation of citizens in shaping decisions, like constituency projects, which impact on them. And finally, they must also encourage the exis-tence of independent non state actors like Orderpaper Nigeria which can strength-en governance by developing programs like ConsTrack, applications like the ConsTrack App which facilitate transpar-ency and accountability in governance.

The ConsTrack App edges us closer to the possibility of a New Nigeria.

Anthony Ubani is Chairman of the Board of OrderPaper Advocacy Initiatives

Of all the institutions of a democratic society, there’s none as formidable as an awakened and conscious citizenry.

–Senator Shehu Sani

Experts agree that the most im-pactful and consequential bill that parliament debates and enacts into law is the appropri-

ation bill. The appropriation law, usually referred to as a budget is impactful as a policy instrument. It is equally invaluable as an economic, political and social ve-hicle that facilitates the delivery of, what we prefer to call in this clime, ‘democ-racy dividends.’ One of the popular and simultaneously controversial dividend of democracy is the constituency projects scheme which is directly administered by the legislative arm of government at the national and state levels in Nigeria.

When the constituency projects scheme was birthed in the National Assembly under the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the goal and expectation was that it would help bring even and equitable infrastructur-al development closer to citizens in their various constituencies across Nigeria. However, the chequered story and his-tory of constituency projects execution since inception in Nigeria does not sup-port the original narrative that informed its foundation.

The balance of media reportage and citizens’ commentary on the adminis-tration and application of constituency allowance for constituency projects both at the national and state levels in Nigeria have consistently weighed heavily on the side of very poor and questionable exe-cution. From the perspectives of citizens, citizens groups and civil society organi-zations who are supposed to be the real beneficiaries of constituency projects, there have been little to commend or ap-plaud.

Citizens’ complaints about the ad-ministration of constituency allowance/projects scheme in Nigeria have consis-tently echoed the same sentiments: lack of transparency and accountability in the design and execution of constituency projects; lack of constituent’s inclusive-ness and participation in the choice of constituency projects; deliberate opac-ity and misinformation surrounding Constituency Projects; absence of verifi-able and accessible information/database on constituency projects with regards to location, actual funding and true status of implementation; high incidence of poor project execution, misapplication of con-stituency allowance and in some cases, zero execution of constituency projects; public apathy which impairs citizens’ participation.

Over the years, many development stakeholders in the legislative sector have designed different intervention programs in an effort to address some if not all of the challenges that compromise the laud-able goals of the constituency project scheme. But none has been as innovative

Strengthening Constituency Projects Scheme in Nigeria With the Constrack app

ToDay

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