It was another Friday and Abullahi Adoga Ibrahim, 55, the Principal of Government Science Secondary School (GSS), Koton Karfe, one of the oldest secondary schools in Kogi State, sits in his office and supervises events around the school.
GSS, Koton Karfe which was first commissioned on 18 January 1971, and has only been renovated once since it was established 51 years ago, Mr Abdullahi revealed. He said violent clashes between the two dominant ethnic groups in the area have also resulted in a drop in enrolment and attendance.
“The conflict between the Bassa and Ebira people has been going on for years even before we started having this issue of bandit attacks and kidnapping. The conflict has reduced the population of students in this school from a 1000 plus to about 400 as students and teachers have fled the communities for safety.
“We have written several letters to the Kogi state Ministry of Education, they only came for inspection once and nothing else was done,” he said.
In 2019 a teacher, Abraham David, was kidnapped and killed after N1 million was paid as ransom.
Similarly, Maryam Zakari, the Head Teacher of LGEA Primary school II, Ajaokuta, said she has written several letters to the state’s Ministry of Education requesting that the school be renovated to no avail. In the school’s 27 years of existence, it has only received a grant once and it was from a World Bank assisted community development project, which only covered the supply of writing desks for some of the pupils. The structure of the school remains dilapidated and unconducive for learning.
The story of Maryam and Adullahi are examples of residents and government officials who are in need of direct means of communicating with the government about developments in their communities and institutions.
More Communities Suffer Lack of a line of Communication with Government
In Oworo community in Kogi West Senatorial district, Model PHC, Felele is the only Primary Healthcare Center catering for the needs of six villages. The PHC only has only Eight Community Health Extension Workers assigned to it, all of which come to work daily from Lokoja, the capital of the state, which is a two-hour drive away. This is owing to the unsatisfactory condition of the building set aside as staff quarter.
The PHC has no pipe borne water and relies on a mechanical pump that manually pumps water from a well. Without a proper road network and a distance of 11km to the nearest general hospital, the PHC cannot boast of a constant source of electricity. Several attempts had been made by the staff of the facility to request for assistance from the state’s Ministry of Health all of which have proved abortive. The staff of the facility are constantly owed salaries and in shortage of drug supply.
In Geregu Community in Ajaokuta Local Government, Comprehensive Healthcare Center, Geregu, which is the only Primary Healthcare Center in the community and its environs, have turned to private donations to keep it functional. An anonymous donor in 2019 renovated and donated 100 beds which is what the center uses till date to admit patients. Though it has a functional borehole with an overhead tank that serves as its source of water supply, drug supply to the health center is inadequate and irregular, and efforts to demand for more supply have yielded no result.
The Kogi State Open Governance and Accountability System (KOGAS)
It is in a bid to drive such Citizens engagement in Governance and bridge the communication gap between government and the people, that the Kogi State Government, proposed the establishment of the Kogi State Open Governance and Accountability System in its 2021 fiscal budget, the software system is supposed to make public officials accessible to any citizen of the state who wishes to make enquiries on certain issues, lay complains and seek information.
However, one year after funds were allocated, the software system is still not ready for use by citizens in the state who are in dire need of the solution it provides.
While N50 Million was previously budgeted for its establishment, Documents obtained by this reporter from the Kogi States Open Contracting Portal shows that N39.2 Million was approved and disbursed to a contractor on the 29 of March, 2021 in a direct contracting bid, for the establishment and development of the Kogi State Open Governance and Accountability System.
The project, which is under the Kogi State Ministry of Information and Communication was awarded to EPPME Digital Technologies Ltd. Preliminary investigations were done on the company and found that the company with registration number RC-1444501 was registered on Oct 11, 2017 but is presently inactive on the CAC portal.
Findings by this reporter shows that, the Kogi State Open Governance and Accountability System (KOGAS) was created and has a website www.kogas.ng where citizens can make Suggestions on government engagement, Interface with heads of Ministries, Department and Agencies in the state, Book appointments with the office of the Governor and view projects executed under MDAs.
As part of preliminary investigations to find out if the accountability software truly functions as intended and to experience its operability by ordinary citizens, this reporter browsed through the menus on the homepage of the portal, opened a pseudo account with an alias and booked an appointment with the office of the governor of Kogi State asking for details on the 2021 states budget for Idah Local Government.
Appointment Booked but No Confirmatory Response
Two weeks after booking the appointment with the office of the Governor, this reporter was yet to get a confirmation email if his appointment was successfully scheduled or not, and set out to investigate the system further.
Adeiza Momoh Jimoh is the Charmian of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, Kogi State chapter, he met with this reporter at the state’s office of the NUJ in Lokoja
“I have heard of the platform but I cannot give an official statement on the current state or if its functioning at the moment”
on being asked the implication of the platform on information gathering by journalists in the state, he replied
“We have our way of engaging the government when we need information.”
Procurement of 50 Laptops for KOGAS Liaison Office
To aid in smooth running of the accountability system, A Fiscal document also obtained by this reporter show that the Kogi State Ministry of Information and Communication disbursed the sum of N7.7 Million Naira on 24 April, 2021 to the same contractor; EPPME Digital Technologies Ltd in a direct contracting bid for the procurement of 50 Laptops for Kogi Open Governance and Accountability System Liaison office, which is to serve as technical manpower, for smooth running of the Software.
This reporter visited some ministries in the state to see if this was done. Findings show that the laptops were procured and distributed to Ministries in the state who in turn appointed liaison officers who will be trained to run the software for that ministry.
Government Responds
This reporter also visited the office of the Kogi State Ministry of Information and Communication and spoke with the Director of ICT on the Kogi State Transparency and accountability system.
“The system has been fully developed, we are in the deployment and training phase. That’s why when you booked an appointment, you didn’t get a response. The current delay is from the side of the contractor. But hopefully by 2023, we will kick start,” he said.
‘The laptops have been procured and delivered to the respective ministries in the state. We are yet to fix a date for the training for the liaison officers but it will be sometime in December,” he added.
Contractor Inaccessible
The EPPME Digital Technology was registered with the Nigerian Corporate Affairs Commission in 2017 to operate and maintain GPS/SMS Switchboard services in the country, with a head office said to be in Iju in Lagos State,” this reporter found.
The company belongs to one Oluwole Aguda, who findings revealed, to have been a gubernatorial aspirant in the 2019 elections in Kogi State under the auspices of the African Action Congress (AAC).
Efforts to reach the contractor were unsuccessful as the website of the tech company http://www.eppmeapp.com/ is not functional and there are no contact details both on the company’s LinkedIn Account and the private blog of the Owner.