Dataphyte on Thursday October 24, 2024 led an open dialogue at the 2024 Nigeria Accountability Summit (NAS) in Abuja. It was a two-day event for policymakers, key stakeholders, and accountability actors to come together and discuss data-driven economic reform for sustainable growth and development, among other national issues in Nigeria.
Prior to this summit, Dataphyte had shared its resources and analysis at the DataFest Africa conference as part of its commitment in promoting accountability and transparency in Africa. For its part, the 2024 NAS was a major stage to highlight how the 8-point agenda of the Nigerian government has fared and impacted the country’s socio-economic landscape in the last year.
Organised by the Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI), this year’s NAS focused on the government’s achievements and challenges in reforming the economy, strengthening national security, boosting agriculture, and unlocking energy and natural resources among other challenges.
On Wednesday, the first day of the summit, several notable experts from different socio-economic sectors shared thought-provoking views on why accountability matters and why it is necessary for Nigeria to adopt meaningful reforms to manage the economy. Vahyala Kwaga, Budgit’s Head of Open Government & Institutional Partnerships, advanced a working definition of accountability which will drive the willingness and desire to ensure proper accountability as well as transparency in Nigeria.
However, Dr. Paul Alaje, a leading economist, said that without institutionalisation of our laws, there cannot be transparency. According to him, there will not be transparency when those who are supposed to hold us to account are the ones we should question about transparency. This is evident in the court case of Yahaya Bello, the former Kogi State Governor. The former governor has been enmeshed in a corruption case and has been evading the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
“But as a people, what makes transparency possible is the political willingness to allow institutions to punish both the big and the so-called small men,” said Dr. Alaje.
The country manager for International Budget Partnership, Mrs. Olayinka Babalola also said that a major problem we have in Nigeria is that we have lots of laws that are unenforceable. “What we do is that we copy and paste templates from societies that are organised very differently in terms of political structures, norms and mindsets, and institutions that are able to enforce the law.”
She believes that “many times, Nigeria is trying to fit herself into a box, so it needs to step back, understand its society; the norms, cultures, and mindsets that operate within its political environment.”
Accountability driven by data
Dataphyte’s Business Development Lead, Ibilolia Akahome held the view that contingent on the advancement of technology and open data portals, government officials can improve accountability and transparency in Nigeria. However, the challenges of leveraging data to drive accountability, such as data infrastructure, data exchange platforms, and data manipulation need to be addressed first and foremost.
Government should have a sustainable data repository which gives information about the gaps in the agricultural sector and all other sectors, said Deina Mayaki, Agriarche’s Chief Executive Officer. For example, she said “the government should harmonise the data of all the available arable land in different states through the local governments; only the government has that capacity.”
In September 2022, the erstwhile Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Mohammad Abubakar disclosed that 56% of Nigeria’s arable land is underutilised. Based on the media report, Nigeria has a total of 79 million hectares of agricultural land with only 44% being cultivated across different states.
Deina asked that “let the government provide data regarding these available lands; where they are, what they can cultivate, what is the volume of farmers’ fair, and how many farmers are female and male. Government should deploy their resources to build this data repository and provide the private sector with all of this information,” to automate a transparent process of securing land for agricultural purposes.
Similarly, in Nigeria, public procurement has contributed heavily to the lack of infrastructure and poor living standard of the people. Oftentimes, Nigeria doesn’t do end-to-end analysis of the problems affecting the country to have an insight about pressing issues.
In 2020, Dataphyte analysed how the government focuses on less important areas, neglecting important sectors like education and health which are important to human development. The recommendations during the dialogue include that the government establish a clear framework with standardised processes, digital tracking, stakeholder engagement, and performance metrics to avoid lack of transparency in public procurement.
Nigeria’s accountability can be best improved if there is proper implementation of existing recommendations and laws. According to Blessing Oluwatosin, a Digital Transformation Consultant, Nigeria has enough laws with a wide gap in its implementation. “We have weak accountability of the government to either continue developing policies or maintain and sustain policies. We have low or no regulations to continue to run on effective capacities.”
Wrong Input, Wrong Output
While speaking, Deina unequivocally emphasised on the consequences of wrong input through the process of data collection. Basically, she said ‘data is the problem’ of not having effective results as it relates to governance and policy in Nigeria.
According to her, Nigeria is too corrupt to just want to have food on their table and it has affected Nigeria to a great extent. She said “we blame the people in authority” when we think they are not acting according to the realities “whereas we are the major contributors to fake data.”
“People who are at the helm of affairs are educated and (use) the evidence of the data provided to them.”
However, she urged that the youth should not get spoiled. “Don’t let the system spoil you. If you are conducting a survey and you’re supposed to collect data for somebody who’s male, don’t manipulate it for females to attract some level of capital.”