It all started with a little discomfort in my chest which then grew into an excruciating pain over a few days. I woke up one Wednesday morning and I couldn’t bear it any longer. The pain in my chest had spread to my left upper body making that part go numb, it even became painful to breathe! This made my whole being scream for oxygen while I trusted the Almighty to keep me alive.

I was up at 5 am to fix my children for school. I was able to whip up breakfast and prepare their school lunch bag. 7 am saw me driving my pain-ridden self to the clinic. I got to the clinic at a quarter to 8 am. I managed to walk up to the entrance, only to be given a tally number with 21 on it and was asked to wait. 

In my painful state, I gently explained to the security guard at the door that it was an emergency and I needed to see a doctor as I couldn’t breathe properly. He politely answered that he was following instructions not to let a patient in until 8 am and I needed to go join the queue  (with numbers 1 to 20) at the waiting cubicle beside the building. Sadly, I looked at my wristband that showed 7:48 am and decided to sit by the stairway. 

My guy (security man) pleaded with me not to sit there and that I should go join the rest in the waiting cubicle. I pleaded with him in return, tears streaming down my face. I explained that I was in pain and wouldn’t be able to make it to the cubicle and back to the entrance. I promised not to get in his way. I guess we are all human because he looked at me, said OK, and told me he was sorry about the pain.

I sat there and watched the clock ticking, some people with express permits (e.g Clinic staff, visitors with food baskets) walked past me and the electronic door parted for them revealing the inside of the reception I longed to get into. 

At 7:56 am, I informed the security guys that it would be a good time to start calling us in. My new friend said not until 8 am on the dot and I had to swallow my pain, sit and continue watching time tick by. By 8:05 am, a man in a black suit and tie walked up to us. By this time, everyone in the waiting cubicle had assembled right in front of the stairway waiting to be called. I was lucky number 21 and was called during the first batch.

Getting through the card desk and checking my vitals at the nursing station took another 10 minutes and I was told to see the doctor in Room 6. Between me being in pain, running out of breath, crying, and explaining my symptoms to the doctor who was staring at me “one kind” perhaps thinking I was overreacting. He was trying to downplay my symptoms to bad sleeping posture. He then said he was going to give me something for the pain. I asked him if he wouldn’t do a chest scan to check what was going on inside of me because my upper body was in turmoil. I felt like all my organs had dropped into my stomach. 

He said he would rather have an X-ray and also invite a senior colleague of his to check me out. He stepped out and in a minute returned with another doctor who examined me and said they should place me on admission for observation and a series of tests would be carried out to determine what was causing the discomfort. I was immediately taken to the female ward, placed on admission, and treatment began.

Twenty-two hours down the line, a concrete diagnosis was yet to be made and I was still in this excruciating pain that I thought was about to take my life. The doctors and nurses kept coming in and going out of the room having managed conversations with me, needles jabbing into me from all angles, drips passing through my veins into my body. Still, I felt no comfort. Finally, a CT scan was done and a diagnosis was made. There was a decision to transfer me to a pulmonologist so I could get the proper treatment I needed. By 12:40 pm on Thursday, I met with the specialist and by 2:15 pm I was checked into Room 412 which would be my place of recovery for the next 7 days.

My experience with the Nigerian health care system has not always been something to write home about. Our lack of emergency response to serious life threatening situations and even situations that seem not too serious can be heartbreaking and have a negative impact on the mental state of the person in need of help. Oftentimes, this leads to avoidable fatal outcomes. A few healthcare centres have picked up the pace in their response to emergencies but a lot more needs to be done to address the nonchalant attitude expressed towards dire conditions that some people find themselves in. 

Looking back, Room 412 wasn’t only full of pains, needles, and medication but it availed me a space to be alone with myself, time to reflect, sleep and rest, and a pseudo-vacation where I was pampered by great doctors and a lovely nurse, wonderful hospital staff, family, colleagues,  and friends. I will surely miss my 7 days in room 412 and I will miss the nice people I met whilst recuperating.

I am dedicating this piece to doctors and nurses and all health workers in Nigeria doing their best to help the sick find healing and comfort. 

Svend-Jonas Schelhorn was one of the first members of the Board of Trustees of CODE in 2013, as he navigated providing expert advice and guidance for the Organisation in eight years. 

Jonas exited the board in 2020, having contributed to CODE’s achievements. In his time as board member, Follow the Money evolved from a group of 5 to over 7000 social accountability activists who are tracking government spending and impacting lives in their communities across Africa.

Speaking of his early memories of joining the board, Jonas commented, “I wanted to support the organization, because I believe in its values, work and vision. When I joined, I was a budding humanitarian activist. It is certain that youthful exuberance was crucial in sustaining the CODE energy.” Jonas currently works as an Information Management Officer for JIPS, an inter-agency service based in Geneva, offering support to governments and international and local organisations to find durable solutions for internally displaced persons. He is also providing support for teams and individuals in Non-Violent Communication.

How would you describe your experience as a Board Member?

(Chuckles) It has been eye-opening, actually. I joined the board when I met Oludotun Babayemi, the co-founder of CODE,  through an online network, the Standby Volunteer Task Force, where people connected to support humanitarian organizations with social media analysis in humanitarian crises. We did some work together and he and Hamzat Lawal deemed it fit to recommend me for the board position.

In the succeeding years, I followed CODE’s work and witnessed the growth of the organization, its success stories and the big impacts. I observed the growth keenly, witnessed the process and gave mild advice where necessary. 

What do you think of the Organisation’s culture? 

CODE is driven by passionate young people. I think this is admirable. I had the impression that the organization is living off a very strong vision and passion for what they do. 

I have experienced this in my own organization. What I notice is that if you live by a very strong vision and passion, you will have a very big impact in a short time. A shortfall here is that the Organisation may not have historical and background experience that people who have worked in the field for twenty to thirty years have. As a consequence, you learn as you go. That also counts for what it means to lead a growing NGO. 

If you were a board chair, what would you do differently?

First, I would provide a social cohesion mechanism between the organization and the board so that there’s no divide between both. I say that because in my experience, it is essential that the vision is clear to anyone who is working with that organization and that the vision is carried by all members of staff.

Second, I would try to build a functional Organisational structure such that all departments are in synergy. I know this is in existence but I would prioritise enhancing the structure and ensure a functional human resources structure as well. 

The third is fund-raising. Is there a proper fund-raising strategy in place that helps to project for the organization? What are we doing now to prepare us for the next five years? How much money do we need to stay functional. The last thing would be to support the organization to function in a humane way so that people feel good about working for the organization and that the organization has a very good communications structure between the team members to identify and resolve bottlenecks. To be fair, these are in existence at CODE. I will only be reinforcing these mechanisms and ensuring that policies are reviewed frequently. I think the heart of an organization is its employees or the people who work for an organization. It is essential that everybody feels valued and a contributing member to the team. 

Did you feel prepared for your board responsibility?

When I joined the board, I thought the idea of creating CODE with its vision was amazing. I still think it’s amazing and admire the impactful work that’s being done so far. 

I was not particularly ready at the time. I was young and growing. When I realised the obligations that came with being a member of the board, I tried to meet up with the energy while I was a member. It was an honour (laughs). 

How would you suggest CODE improves its board processes?

I think the recruitment of a board is, from my perspective, like the recruitment of an employee of an organization. You have to identify the people who are right for your organization. The candidate must have a clear vision of the responsibilities and expectations.

If I were to think about the future structure of a board and who should be on it, I would first think, What skills should a person have? What is their personality? A high-level of experience comes in handy. A specialist who has worked for decades and understands how the civil society space functions, what growth projection can be and how to access fundings. It is a huge responsibility so we will be getting experienced hands. The board is there to provide mentorship and leadership to all members of Staff.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us, Jonas. One last question, how would you like to stay involved with CODE?

Yes, I would be happy to stay connected because I am very passionate about leadership and establishing strategies for organizations. I think that’s exciting and also an area I would like to develop. 

My journey with CODE has been nothing short of fulfilling. Watching the Organisation grow significant impacts, it felt like  I grew simultaneously. Beyond work, I made lifelong friends.

CODE Holds Management Retreat to Enhance Corporate Vision

During its management retreat, CODE made deliberations and endorsed new policies to improve its internal structures and strengthen corporate vision.

The exercise, which held on Friday, May 21, 2021 during a four-day management and trustees meeting also witnessed the amendment and ratification of other relevant policies to realign with the mission of the organisation.

The assessment was conducted by the Lagos Business School (LBS), scrutinised the organisational structure including the relationship between the management and board members and reviewed corporate governance gaps and financial crisis that rocked the organisation in 2019, coupled with the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that shutdown many socio-economic activity globally in 2020.

Papers were presented on the state and strategic plan of the organisation as well as the 21^st century role of non-profit board of trustees and management towards organisational efficiency, productivity and social impact.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of CODE, Hamzat Lawal, while shedding light on some of these challenges that made his corporation to adopt the new policy, said the report revealed that there was need to reposition the corporate outlook of his establishment. “As much as we were excited about our work and we thought everything was fine,” Lawal said, “but that assessment and some of its key findings showed that we needed to fix some things if we have to scale-up and grow in our next phase.”

The group’s helmsman disclosed that the summit was organised to bring the management staffs and board members together to bond and brainstorm on how best to direct affairs of the organisation. He told the participants that the many setbacks that CODE faced in the past few years actually fortified and took the organisation to its current height of success and fulfilment.

“In 2019,” according to him, “we encountered serious governance issues and at that time for us we thought that would have been the end of our organisation because we were not operating with best practices.”

However, he clarified that with support from the LBS and commitment from board members who worked tirelessly in reshaping the organisational corporate policies, CODE was able to come back stronger with one of the best financial systems across the continent.

Acting chairman of the organisation, Anthony Agbor, while giving his remarks at the event, thanked the participants for their loyalty and commitment in engaging grass roots communities especially during the COVID-19 saga that almost crippled all human activities.

He urged the team to maintain its focus knowing that the future of Nigeria and the continent rest on the activities of the organisation. “We should not relent in our commitment to reach out to the grass roots and empower them to see reasons to rebuild the focus of this country and get us back on the part of glory,” Agbor submitted.

FollowTheMoney and BudgIT are tracking COVID funds and ensuring transparency & accountability in 7 African countries.

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Follow The Money is strategically decentralizing its operational structures to allow zonal champions to own the vision and encourage massive volunteer recruitment at the community level. To achieve this, the management of CODE organized a one day “zonal convening” for its FTM state leads in the 6 geo-political zones in Nigeria.

The sessions were designed to review challenges of lack of access to information and other issues that are peculiar to each region, compile success stories and develop strategic plans. These are efforts to strengthen the capacity of regional/state leads and FTM champions to be able to drive the vision of the initiative and achieve needed results with focus on FTM’s Theory of Change. 

The Capacity-building session with CODE’s Community Engagement Director, Busayo Morakinyo, set the tone for understanding CODE’s value and service delivery to her constituencies. “One of the goals of the organization is to strengthen the capacity of her state and local champions and help them grow to be able to demand transparency and accountability from the government.” Mr Morakinyo also emphasised the importance of participatory community mobilization and facilitating information sharing through community champions.

Topics on government data-mining, budget reviews and policy formulations were also discussed. The need for strong collaboration and partnership with community-based associations, youth groups, and community leaders using advocacy, to strengthen community engagement.

Participants also learnt about funding, idea generation, using social media as an advocacy tool to drive change and mobilising citizens.

Budget Ministry Pegs Kaduna Constituency Projects at N6Bn, to Partner Follow The Money on Tracking Government Projects

The Ministry of Budget & National Planning has agreed to partner with leading social accountability initiative, Follow The Money on open government partnership in relation to constituency projects in Kaduna valued at N6bn in the 2020 and 2021 budgets.

The Honourable Minister of Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, who is also co-chair of the Open Government Partnership, while receiving Follow The Money activists in his office, stated that the Ministry was receptive to working with accountability partners to track the effectiveness of project implementation at State and local levels where OGP can further be enhanced within grassroots communities.

CODE’s Programs Associate, Kingsley Agu, who led the team revealed that through a campaign to deepen citizens interest in government’s spendings and address accompanying corrupt practices, CODE in collaboration with MacArthur Foundation was setting the pace to initiate reforms that will promote government’s transparency, accountability and citizens’ participation in government budgeting system.

“CODE seeks to partner with the Ministry of Budget & National Planning to further enhance service delivery and infrastructural development for grassroots communities particularly, through budget information-sharing and providing data on constituency projects. Through this, the Community Monitoring Teams can ensure projects are effectively completed.”

Agu added that collaboration with the Ministry was a strategic move to collectively combat corruption, illicit financial flows and track to completion, development projects in rural areas so people can have access to potable drinking water, standard healthcare and even primary education.

Assuring to partner with CODE, the Honourable Minister revealed that “The Eye Mark App”, a web and mobile-based application with geo-meta tags that is secured and easily accessible will be launched by the ministry to enable citizens update information about community projects in real-time, with the inclusion of photos to show current status of the project. 

CODE has now urged the release of budget details to enable citizens track public projects effectively. The Organisation is committed to supporting government initiatives that provide the dividends of democracy to improve the lives of the people whom the government serves.

***

Editor’s Note: 

About DeSPAAC Campaign: The Deepening Citizens’ Interest in Government Spending and addressing Accompanying Corrupt Practices is a campaign implemented by CODE’s Follow The Money initiative with support from MacArthur Foundation to enhance citizens participation in demanding improved service delivery and track government’s project implementation in Kaduna State. 

The three-year project will also leverage FTM’s proven track record/ expertise in community empowerment and engagement to empower community governance structures namely community monitoring teams (CMTs) and Follow The Money Champions to identify and effectively provide oversight on social projects including the implementation of constituency projects.

Insecurity, Child Abductions and the State of Education in Nigeria’s North

Following the rising cases of insecurity and abduction of school children, CODE, in partnership with the Malala Fund organises a webinar to discuss the threat of insecurity on girl-child education and solutions that can be charted.

Insecurity continues to be one of the deadly menaces plaguing Nigeria.

In recent times, there has been an increase in kidnapping and banditry, posing a grievous threat to national security and economic development. Not only has this adversely affected our National image but has also eaten deep into every fabric and segment of the Nation.

Not too far from this is the spate of abduction of school children in recent times. Mass kidnappings of school girls and boys at schools in the North-East & North-West Nigeria began 7 years ago and have become a frequent phenomenon in the past couple of months, carried out by acclaimed bandits who have turned this menace into money-making ventures. This form of brazen terrorism has unfortunately not been met with the level of aggression that is needed to address the severity of a recurring crime of this kind.

Since 2014, according to several news reports, there have been over a thousand student kidnappings. These crimes have been targeted at underaged school children who are often made vulnerable by poor security infrastructure and negligence on the part of the state and federal government. 

The Safe Schools Initiative: A Tale of Corruption and Incompetence

In recent times, the public has begun to recall the genesis of the spate of school kidnappings in the town of Chibok in north-eastern Borno state. 276 girls were kidnapped in April 2014 and 112 of them are still missing.

The Safe Schools Initiative (SSI), a $30m plan to improve security in schools, was launched in 2015 to bolster security at schools. The plan was backed by UK’s former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, along with UN agencies, the Nigerian government and private business leaders.

However, SSI has failed to stop abductions and protect children and like many ambitious government projects, suffered the usual fate of corruption. After several years, 500 schools have not been protected, the classrooms have not been built and the Chibok school is still closed.

According to a BBC report, “a former high-ranking member of the government, Babachir Lawal, whose office had access to the SSI fund, is currently on trial for allegedly mismanaging 500m naira (£954,000; $1.3m) in contracts awarded for cutting grass. He denies the accusations.” More recently, the trend has accelerated with kidnappings occurring in Dapchi, in north-eastern Yobe state, in February 2018; Kankara, in north-western Katsina state, in December 2020; Kagara, north-central Niger state, in February 2021; Jangebe, north-western Zamfara state, in February 2021 and Kaduna in March 2021.

Matters Arising in Kaduna State

In Kaduna, thirty-nine students went missing after gunmen stormed the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization in Kaduna state overnight on March 11, 2021. At the time, it was the fourth school abduction in northern Nigeria since December. In an ironic turn of events, gunmen seized three teachers from a primary school in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state in the same month. One can only wonder what is to come if the trend persists. These terrorists are becoming bolder.

The State Authorities assured of improving security infrastructure. Not long after, there were reports of security operatives reportedly foiling an attempt to capture students from a secondary school in the early hours of Sunday, March 15 on the outskirts of Kaduna’s Ikara town. Officials said that 180 students and staff abducted from a college in the state on Thursday were rescued by the army.

CODE Condemns this Menace, Urges Govt to Take Action

Connected Development [CODE] & Malala Fund have described as worrisome and an indictment on our democracy; the spate of abduction of school children in recent times. CODE strongly condemns these atrocious crimes and hereby calls on the government to urgently deploy measures to protect children and ensure schools are safe for learning.

“The psychological and social consequences on parents and guidance are too grievous to describe and the abducted children often have to live with the scar for the rest of their lives” -Hamzat Lawal, Chief Executive of CODE.

CODE continues to advocate for education for young Nigerians, especially the girl-child and through its works has significantly ensured that the number of out-of-school children is reduced.  The abduction of school children who now serve as pawns in the hands of their abductors is a challenge that drastically sets back the work of the government and many organisations to ensure children learn in schools.

The NGOs urge the government to re-strategise its security infrastructure and address the dearth of effective protection of lives and property. The authorities cannot continue to play to the tune of these culprits and reward them with ransoms. State governments and President Mohammadu Buhari must step up measures to tackle this notorious attack before it escalates.

Nigerians must continue to speak against this injustice until the government becomes responsive. The Nigerian Government must awaken to its responsibilities of protecting citizens lives and properties and combat this menace because the target on education is a target on the future of Nigeria.

***

2020 Annual Report: Empowering Communities in a Pandemic

In 2020, with the global pandemic binding the world together, we saw our work come together in new ways, creating the springboard we need to unleash unprecedented impact in the years ahead. We witnessed a great level of interdependence—that our collective success does not only depend on how we care for ourselves but also how we are looking out for other people around us.

In light of what we do at CODE, constantly advocating for public funds to be used for public good, especially in the areas of education and more importantly healthcare, we most certainly believe that the state of a nation’s healthcare is tantamount to its wellbeing. Our call for accountability and transparency in public services was to prepare our society, our country and the world to tackle challenges that a pandemic of this kind presents.

Although the impact of our work was tested in many ways than one, we achieved measurable impacts through #FollowCOVIDMoney campaign and numerous projects, tracking the sum of 507, 967,121.5 USD worth of government budgets. We mobilised young people in 7 African countries to use digital tools for social accountability and to track COVID Funds, reached 257 Communities and impacted  4,879,000 Lives.

Today, as the globe continues to deal with COVID-19 and navigate its health, economic and social implications, we at CODE have continued to make proactive decisions to provide communities with access to information and also ensure the personal health and safety of our team and our members across Africa.

Read more on our impacts in 2020.

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By Shakir Akorede

It’s no more news—one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria.

If that is appalling, generally speaking, the case of the northern part of the country is even scarier. In northern Nigeria, Only 61% of 6–11 year-olds regularly attend primary school, while only 35.6% of children aged 36–59 months receive early childhood education, as revealed by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).

Nigeria’s education crisis is blamed on many factors most commonly economic barriers, ill socio-cultural practices and, recently, security challenges. But one prime factor is often ignored—corruption. According to Transparency International, more than half of Nigeria’s education budget is lost to corruption. Sadly, this robs the sector of resources needed to get poor children in urban and rural communities in school so they have equal access to education.

Although Nigeria is known for its low education budget, corruption is yet responsible for poor funding and thus abysmal infrastructures, inadequacy of classrooms and quality teachers as well as poor learning environment—all which contribute to Nigeria’s 10.5 million out-of-school children.

Arguably, war against corruption in the education sector seems the most vital step to reverse the dangerous trend.

This explains why Follow The Money, supported by the MacArthur Foundation, deployed its advocacy and project monitoring arsenal to ensure the delivery of $1.5 million (570 million Naira) in education infrastructure across four local governments in Kaduna State, playing a tripartite role: community engagement, project tracking and assurance of quality service delivery, and taking pupils off the street.

“Our work was important in Kaduna State because the state had signed up on the Open Government Partnership (OGP) – the first Nigerian state to do so,” said Hamzat Lawal, founder and CEO of Follow The Money. However, being an OGP member isn’t a silver bullet to good governance and accountability. “For democracy to really work in Nigeria, we must take citizen engagement very seriously,” added Hamzat.

And that proves to be true. “Before the coming of Follow The Money, the community was in the dark. We didn’t know what the government was doing to us,” Yohanna Zuberu, a community member in Jema’a, opens up in a documentary. His assertion would be affirmed by an official of the Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB). “There’s been a gap in the interaction with the community members,” the official, Mubarak Muhammed, said, adding however, “With the constant advocacy by Follow The Money, we are able to say that community members are more aware of what is happening around them. There’s this renewed effort to ensure that for every new project we must inform the people of what is to come and what the expectations should be.”

As of January 2020, Follow The Money’s civic action in Kaduna has facilitated the construction and rehabilitation of 23 primary schools in the four local governments of Jema’a, Kajuru, Kudan, and Zangon Kataf, with an impressive enrollment of over 200,000 children in those schools and other existing ones.

Interestingly, this effort would trigger unexpected results in Kaduna State. By September 2019, the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) had launched an extensive campaign, going far beyond the four local governments, to enrol 145,000 children in school. In a news report, the board’s Social Mobilisation Acting Director, Ibrahim Aminu said that the policy was targeted at all categories of out-of-school children with the aim to enrol 727,764 out-of-school children in the next five years.

Making the Impossible Possible

Children education is one of the most intractable social challenges in Northern Nigeria. No surprise Follow The Money is seen to be moving mountains.

“The strategy used in Kaduna to decrease the number of out-of-school children was to get the community members and the educational sector to work together. First we created School Monitoring Teams (SMTs) teams, which is a mixture of all the community governance structures to be able to track the implementation of school projects across board” explains Kingsley Agu, Follow The Money project officer.

Expatiating on that model, Hamzat Lawal notes, “Follow The Money bottom-up and top-bottom approach is taking data needs assessment from the community input, putting it into government development plans and taking government commitment down to the people to collect feedback.” On the Kaduna education project, he adds with stern commitment on his face, “Follow The Money would help ensure the acceleration and implementation of this important policy commitment from the government, creating an environment where citizens can give feedback and where they can hold their government to account on public expenditure.”

On rebuilding primary education infrastructure in Kaduna State, Follow the Money is not only strengthening accountability and delivery of public goods to the most vulnerable section of the society, it is improving access to education, creating new hopes for a better future.

“We have recorded a considerable amount of success in project implementation, especially in terms of transparency. Gone are the days where projects are being awarded and not being delivered even when monies have been paid,” a SUBEB official says.

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