by Edwin Okolo
Second panel: this is their topic: Governance and Transparency, an evaluation of the current administration
On this National Democracy day, three days from the 2018 Nigerian Symposium for Young and Emerging Leaders organized by The Future Project, we are forced to look back at the governments we have had since we left behind 40 years of dictatorships and embraced democracy. It took nearly two decades to manage our first internationally lauded free and fair election, and our first peaceful, democratic handover between presidents. But those events seem like bookends for governments that are riddled with bureaucracy, corruption and a disregard for the rule of law. There have been instances of such complete disintegration of government process that citizen activists have had to step into the fray and hold the government accountable. Yemi Adamolekun, executive director of Enough is Enough has been one of the citizen activists in the trenches, acting as a watchdog for process transparency spanning several governments. As an activist, her pedigree is unmatched. She has seen government abandon election manifestos, and renege on campaign promises. She was at the forefront of the groundbreaking #OccupyNigeria protest, and continues to challenge government to keep its processes transparent.
As the moderator of The Future Project’s Nigeria Symposium for Young and Emerging Leaders, I am curious to see where she takes the panelists who are coming to intimate us with the government’s attempts at correcting the mistakes of government’s past and restructure the process to improve on its transparency and its focus on citizenship. Especially now that President Buhari has promised to sign the #NotTooYoungToRun bill before next year’s elections, opening up the playing field for a new generation of politicians with new ideas.
She already has some of the young politicians already making an impact in their fields, like Mark Okoye, a former recipient of The Future Awards Africa’s Person of the Year award in 2016 for his excellent work in public service, working as the Anambra state commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget Development, the youngest commissioner in the history of Nigeria at the time of his appointment. Okoye has been very hands-on in community development and it will be interesting to see into the mechanism that runs Willie Obiano’s highly lauded government.
It will be interesting to see Yemi Adamolekun spar with Asuquo Ekpenyong, who used to hold the title for youngest commissioner in the history of Nigeria before Okoye. He will bring his unique perspective of working in a government plagued by insecurity, pollution and a Federal allocation budget that seems eternally mired in political intrigue. Ekpenyong brings expertise in academia, a background in finance and political experience to panel, providing a good counterweight to Okoye and Muhammed Sani Datiijo, the Kaduna state commissioner for Budget and Planning. Dattijo is part of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai’s controversial government style, which has been praised for its decisive action but also criticized for its heavy handed approach to dissent and criticism. His governor Mallam El-Rufai is heavily distrusted for comments that could be misconstrued as ethnically biased and his reluctance to wade into the Fulani Herdsmen crisis in the majority Christian Southern Kaduna.
All three commissioners bring unique perspectives to the panel, but as an outsider running Paradigm Initiative, the citizen activism platform, Gbenga Sesan has the unique perspective of seeing how even the government’s most well meaning initiatives actually play out in the polity. He will bringing that to the panel, and providing data based insight on how transparency or the lack of it strengthens or weakens our government.
It isn’t too late to register for the symposium. Do it here.
15 Comments
of course like your web site however you need to take a look at the spelling on several of your posts.
A number of them are rife with spelling issues and I in finding
it very troublesome to tell the reality then again I
will surely come again again.
I blog frequently and I truly thank you for your content.
This great article has really peaked my interest.
I’m going to take a note of your site and keep checking for new information about once a
week. I opted in for your Feed too.
Very good blog! Do you have any tips for aspiring writers?
I’m planning to start my own site soon but I’m a little lost on everything.
Would you propose starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for
a paid option? There are so many choices out there that I’m
completely overwhelmed .. Any tips? Appreciate
it!
Its like you read my mind! You seem to know so much about
this, like you wrote the book in it or something.
I think that you could do with some pics to drive the message home a bit, but other
than that, this is excellent blog. A great read.
I will certainly be back.
I do trust all of the ideas you’ve introduced in your post.
They are very convincing and will definitely work.
Nonetheless, the posts are too short for novices.
May just you please prolong them a bit from subsequent time?
Thank you for the post.
Hi there all, here every person is sharing such experience, thus it’s nice to read this web site, and I used to visit this weblog every day.
This post is priceless. Where can I find out more?
Why users still make use of to read news papers when in this technological world everything is accessible on web?
I blog quite often and I genuinely appreciate your content.
The article has truly peaked my interest. I will bookmark your site
and keep checking for new details about once a week.
I opted in for your RSS feed too.
Your style is very unique compared to other people I have read stuff from.
Thank you for posting when you’ve got the opportunity, Guess I’ll just bookmark this site.
With havin so much content do you ever run into any issues of plagorism or copyright infringement?
My site has a lot of exclusive content I’ve either authored myself or
outsourced but it looks like a lot of it is popping it up all over the web without my agreement.
Do you know any techniques to help stop content from being stolen? I’d definitely appreciate it.
you’re truly a just right webmaster. The site loading velocity is
amazing. It kind of feels that you are doing any unique trick.
In addition, The contents are masterpiece. you have done a fantastic task in this topic!
Hello! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering which blog platform
are you using for this site? I’m getting fed up of WordPress
because I’ve had problems with hackers and I’m looking at
options for another platform. I would be great if
you could point me in the direction of a good platform.
It’s actually a nice and helpful piece of info. I am satisfied that you
shared this useful information with us. Please stay us informed like this.
Thanks for sharing.
I’ll immediately grab your rss feed as I can not to find your e-mail subscription link or e-newsletter service.
Do you have any? Kindly permit me recognise so that I could subscribe.
Thanks.