TheCable

OrderPaper Advocacy Initiative (OAI), a not-for-profit organisation, has called for actions to improve Nigeria’s ranking on the open parliament index (OPI).

The organisation made the call at the workshop organised for journalists and civil society organisations (CSO) held in Abuja over the weekend.

The workshop was focused on how to further improve transparency and accountability in the nation’s legislature.

The OPI index uses three criteria — transparency, civic participation, and public accountability — to assess parliaments across Africa.

The OPI West African Index for 2022 ranked Nigeria fourth on public accountability, and civic participation, and sixth on transparency.

To assess transparency, the index considers if a parliament “discloses more information, improves the legal or institutional frameworks to guarantee the right to information, improves the quality of parliamentary information disclosed to the public, or improves the transparency of its decision-making processes or systems.

The index evaluates whether a parliament “creates or improves opportunities, processes or mechanisms for the public to inform or influence decisions; whether Parliament creates, enables or improves participatory mechanisms for minorities or underrepresented groups; and whether Parliament enables a legal environment that guarantees freedoms of assembly, association and peaceful protest, to measure civic participation. 

On public accountability, the index examines if a parliament creates or improves opportunities to hold members and officials of parliament to account.

Speaking at the workshop, Itia Otabor, director of the strategy at the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy, and Development (Centre LSD), said the legislature should make a deliberate effort to improve the ranking.

Otabor explained that Promoting Open Parliament for Upscaling Legislative Accountability (POPULA), a project by OrderPaper, aimed at improving the performance indicators for legislators.

“We are hoping that the OPI will become a mechanism, a vehicle that we can use to achieve the institutionalisation of the performance measurement that will engender a much more transparent and accountable and public participatory parliament,” he said.

“If we popularise the index, especially the indicators that went into the result that was published in the index, it will help to promote transparency, accountability, and civic participation in our national parliament.”

 Grace Ike, the chairperson of the house of representatives press corps, said one of the challenges journalists face in Nigeria, is the limited access to refresher courses and capacity-building workshops.

While commending OrderPaper for the workshop, Ike said the workshop would improve journalists’ reportage of the parliament.

“I am, therefore, delighted to be part of this capacity-building workshop under the auspices of the POPULA project — a wonderful initiative of the OrderPaper Advocacy Initiative,” she said.

“But most of the constituents or electorate are largely ignorant about these responsibilities. It is therefore the responsibility of parliamentary reporters to enlighten the people on how the lawmakers carry out their functions.

“Hence, a workshop of this nature is key in further educating and equipping journalists who cover activities of the legislature on the best criteria or methods for properly assessing legislators.

“It means, if the parliamentary correspondent is well informed, he will be in a better position to relay the performance of a legislator to his or her constituents; and this will lead to informed decisions on the part of the electorate during elections.”