The YMonitor Quarterly show on Rubbin’Minds for this quarter featured Ope Oriniowo and Mutiat Oladejo. They both detailed different models to ensure accountability in Nigeria.
A major challenge facing Nigeria is the lack of a proper structure of accountability in the governance of the country, there’s virtually no transparency in all aspect of the nation’s socio-economic life & also one of the major reasons inefficiency continues to embattle the country.
Ebuka, our host for the show sat down with Opeyemi Oriniowo; who is a youth advocate, international development practitioner and analyst, as well as Dr. Mutiat Titilope Oladejo; who is a lecturer in the Department of History, University of Ibadan, Nigeria also the founder of Development Discourse in Africa, where they shared different accountability models & the lack thereof that exists in Nigeria.
In Nigeria, the state of public accountability from independence till date is highly disheartening.
It the level of accountability among public officials in the management of public affairs in Nigeria has consistently declined especially under the present democratic dispensation. Accountability plays a key role in improving performance at institutions, organizations, and individual level. For some scholars, accountability and performance improvement are instrumental to each other, some believe that through greater accountability we will enhance the government’s performance.
The basis of the discussion formed around the need to understand the importance of accountability in the public sector, it is important to analyze the Nigerian structure of governance by discussing the nature of the economy of the country. Nigeria is the sixth largest producer of oil and gas in the world, but the average Nigerian on the street is poor and there is poor infrastructure around power supply, roads, hospitals, etc.
This point to the fact that there is absence of a proper accountability model and this has drastically affected the performance in service delivery in the public sector in Nigeria. Lack of accountability manifests itself in a number of ways, for example, uncompleted projects. Nigerian physical environment is dotted with abandoned projects; some are as old as the first republic and non-functioning industrial establishments.
Why does Nigerians find it hard to hold the government accountable, Ope Oriniowo thinks that fundamentally, it is the current structure of governance that betrays us. From independence of states, to devolution of power which all points to how the Nigerian people have decided to govern themselves. Nigerian people didn’t choose this structure, they just found themselves in it – almost a hangover from what the military government was/is. A system problem, even a capacity problem exists, the current governing bodies promised a system restructuring but discrepancies between the president’s party manifestoes & his mandate have led to this not coming to fruition.
Is restructuring especially as regards to accountability feasible in Nigeria? Mutiat Oladejo, insisted that there’s a structure but what we currently have is an immediate ineffective grassroots/local government bodies. Why don’t we accountability in the local level? Does the local government system know the dynamics of managing this emerging Nigerian society?
There’s also a lot of emphasis on Citizen’s participation in the local governance. Does the constitution clearly show a model or process through which the people can participate & make local government bodies accountable.
Watch the video of the show on YouTube to learn more.
You can catch our activities at YMonitor by following us on socials; @Y_Monitor.