TheCable

Hadiza Bala Usman, special adviser to President Bola Tinubu on policy and coordination, says the citizens’ tracker that will enable Nigerians to monitor government projects will soon be relaunched.

Bala Usman spoke on Tuesday at the social accountability and civil society fair/exhibition event organised by the Joinbodi Cohort under the MacArthur Foundation in Nigeria.

The theme of the event was “Reforming governance to enhance social accountability – cultivating peoples’ power”.

Bala Usman said Tinubu has insisted that there must be first-hand participation of Nigerians in the verification of the delivery of government projects.

“Mr president further insists that there needs to be first-hand participation of Nigerians in the verification of the delivery programme and projects of the government,” she said.

“Very shortly we’ll be relaunching the citizens’ tracker which will avail Nigerians across the country to track and monitor the list of priority programmes and projects of the government and their status and you can report otherwise.

“These reports will be viewed by the central delivery and coordination unit, and even importantly, Mr. President will have a dashboard where he would be able to see and track the progress of implementation of his priority programmes.

“President Tinubu is determined to make Nigeria work for Nigerians, but it doesn’t end with that, he is committed to giving Nigerians a voice and empowering them to participate in the governance of their country.”

Also speaking at the event, Atiku Bagudu, minister of budget and national planning, said Tinubu has directed members of his cabinet to submit themselves for questioning by Nigerians to show accountability.

“I have the mandate amongst others to explain what the budget and national development objectives are,” the minister said.

“We have a national development plan, we want to be one of the developed countries of the world by 2050 and what we are doing to ensure that. It was started with the 2024 budget.

“We have been put on our toes by Mr president, he said openly that ministers who cannot help in the dreams that Nigerians want may consider stepping aside, so it takes all of us and not just the civil society to come together and fight for the better Nigeria that we all want.”

On his part, Gabriel Okeowo, country director of BudgIT, said good governance is characterised by transparency, accountability, the rule of law, and citizen participation.

“While we have not attained the level of good governance we truly desire in Nigeria, we can confidently say that we have moved significantly from where Nigeria used to be as regards governance, social accountability, and engagement in general,” Okeowo said.