The Resource Centre for Human Rights & Civic Education (CHRICED) says the Constituency project system in the country has been characterized by corruption, lack of accountability among others since the return of the country to civil rule in 1999.
The Centre's Executive Director, Dr. Ibrahim Zikirullahi who stated this during a training for Media and the Civil Society Organizations, CSO's on fostering Transparency and Accountability in Constituency Project Service Delivery, said the Constituency projects, which should have been the outcomes of democratic decision-making and robust participation of the people at the grassroots are being subverted to serve other interests instead of the public good.
Zikirullahi who was represented by his Programs and Communications Manager, Armsfree Ajanaku, further said the country would have witnessed development and transformation order than the current situation if the constituency projects were not abused.
According to him, "Unfortunately, what we have seen since Nigeria’s return to civil rule is a constituency project system that has been severely damaged by corruption, inefficiency, lack of accountability and weak participation of beneficiaries. Projects, which should have been the outcomes of democratic decision-making and robust participation of the people at the grassroots are being subverted to serve other interests instead of the public good.
"At the federal and state level, constituency projects would have been like the famous Marshall Plan of the United States of America with its capacity to bring developmental projects to the people at the grassroots. If the intended service delivery envisage through the constituency project is as effective as the intentions should be, such basic things as rural roads, cottage industries, health facilities, recreational spaces and so many more would have been built in communities across the country," he said.
He however stated that the training was to equip the media and CSO's on need to work closely together by beaming the spotlight on the activities of government, especially the Constituency projects in which the government expended public funds.
"I believe in the spirit of preventing corruption and poor service delivery in constituency project implementation, I call on media and CSOs to take advantage of anti-corruption tools available in laws, and international commitments such as the Open Government Partnership (OGP), Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, and the Fiscal Responsibility Act. CHRICED is open for synergies and collaboration to use these instruments to realize the cardinal objective of preventing corruption and improving service delivery.
"Today’s training will also provide space for reflection on some of the transparency and accountability tools, which journalists and CSOs should deploy to make their work on constituency projects a lot more impactful," Zikirullahi however stated.
A resource person, Khadija Bawas called on the media and civil society Organizations to leverage on media convergence to ensure accountability in the execution of constituency projects for transparency, minimize corruption and ensure public trust.
Another resource person, Bilkisu Ado Zango while presenting a paper titled "Best Practices for promoting gender and social inclusion in Constituency project reporting," called on the electorates to set best practices for the lawmakers in implementation of Constituency projects and where such lawmakers fails they should invoke the process of recalling such lawmaker in order to ensure accountability and social inclusion in the execution of constituency projects.
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