Lukman Abdulmalik
The Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) and the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) on Thursday agreed to partner during an advocacy visit by the latter to discuss issues of accountability and corrupt practices around constituency projects in the state.
The Senior Programmes Officer at CHRICED, Omoniyi Adewoye, highlighted that the advocacy visit to CITAD has become necessary for being a part of the cohort called JoinBody.
He added that “JoinBody is an initiative supported by the MacArthur Foundation. The cohort is working on anti-corruption issues.
“So we visited our partners, CITAD, to see how we can work more on enlightening Nigerians and putting out information that can help them make accountability demands on their representatives, particularly around issues of constituency projects because a lot of money goes into that component of the budget and they are not being accounted for.
“The government is spending so much and we are not getting value. So, a majority of citizens do not even know how much has been budgeted, approved, released, or spent.
“We are here to see how we can partner with CITAD on how to put the information out there and engage citizens to be able to make accountability demands and curb this issue of corruption in constituency projects delivered in Nigeria.”
CITAD’s Senior Programs Officer, Malam Isah Garba, appreciated the CHRICED visit and assured of his organization’s readiness to partner to ensure citizens are informed about their rights.
He added that the CITAD will deploy its information technology tools to educate the public on how they can hold duty-bearers accountable.
