TheCable

Dataphyte Nigeria is organising a virtual data journalism training on understanding the audit accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

In a statement, Joshua Olufemi, chief executive officer and founder of Dataphyte, said 20 journalists will be trained during the programme scheduled for Thursday.

He said the training “stems from Dataphyte’s vested interest in public sector accountability and good governance in Nigeria and her extractive sector.”

In June, the NNPC started publishing its audited financial statements online.

The move, which is the first of such since its operations, followed open government partnership (OGP) campaigns in Nigeria.

Olufemi said while NNPC opened its books, “we can’t read or use them as they are not in open data formats.”

“Hence, it became imperative to organise this training due to the low number of media engagements centred on these audited financial statements,” he said.

“The training will make journalists understand the financial statement and demand accountability through data-driven reporting of NNPC’s financial activities.

“Further, it will ensure a collective effort by journalists to highlight anomalies in the financial management of the subsidiaries of NNPC.

“Trained journalists will subsequently use skills gained to report critical issues within the financial statements of the state-owned oil firm.

“These reports will drive the demand for accountability on the financial operation of NNPC’s subsidiary companies operating within and outside the country.”

Dataphyte is known for collating and curating data from diverse sources and transforming them into machine-readable formats.