Proactive Vigilance: How Citizens can hold their government accountable
Oludotun Babayemi
July 18, 2016
“Abeg, you cannot come and fix a programme that will start at 8 am on a Saturday morning, I will not be able to attend, please postpone it for another day or cancel it” responded Ijiwere to her colleagues, who wanted to visit another friend; “Let me tell you, If you want me to come for that ‘owambe’ party on Saturday, then you should let it start at 10 am” affirmed Giringori, to his friends who were planning an event for Saturday.
“Imagine, those my friend wanted to suggest 8 am as a time for that party, I totally disagreed, and told them Jigida will be aired on radio at that time, and that is the only way I can report the lack of water in Kagara” said Giringori to his elder brother – Ijiwere.
These are the kind of conversations that go on in Kagara community, with everyone looking forward to Jigida, a weekly, one – hour radio programme that allows for citizens to call – in and express their community needs, which afterwards are been documented and sent to the various local government chairmen, and State House of Representative for response and decisions to be made. That’s not all, the first 30 mins of the programme is dedicated to the Councillor of the community sharing with the community, how much and what they will be spending on in the week. This is what proactive vigilance is all about!
Although proactive vigilance or public participation in budgeting or government spending is relatively new, the evidence attesting to its impact on resource allocation and service delivery is growing. Many of the existing findings are based on the well-known Brazilian experience with participatory budgeting, established first in Porte Alegre in 1989, and now replicated in over 40 countries around the world. Nigeria, is not left out as well, as its government hopes to encourage citizen participation, with its recent commitment to joining the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.
You might be wondering, how many – landlord associations,vigilante groups, market women associations, community development associations, we have in rural communities. A lot of them! When are we going to start having “project vigilante” in rural communities, that will become voices of several communities, because by the time you wake up tomorrow morning, the news will be agog with “one billion dollars to be released to provide water in Kagara” only to go to Kagara after one year, you will find out that Kagara has no water source or a broken water source. Quite pathetic, and that’s is the way we are – the leaders and followers.
Nevertheless, I am excited that the Story Story writers at BBC Media Action are focusing on how citizens at the local government level, can be proactively vigilant on such issues of government spending in their communities, and I recently had some hours of session brainstorming with the crew, on how citizens can become vigilant themselves, I hope all will be reflected in their popular radio drama coming up sometimes in fall. Thanks to Nkem, our Reseach Lead on government finance, who took some notes on the highlights, and I have added them below:
Citizens can at every stage of this budget cycle engage their various government, but limited participation is expected during during formulation
- There is the local government or state government budget, a document that highlights government spending and revenue which can be for a financial year, or a multiyear.
- The Budget has its on cycle starting from formulation (when Ministry, Department, Agencies, put together their budget), to enactment (when the national or state legislative arm assent to the budget), to implementation (the stage at which contractors start executing projects in your communities), and lastly, the assessment stage (where everyone assesses the implementation of the budget, to provide feedback on how the next stage should look like)
- At every stage of the budget, citizens can make noise about their plight, and join in the conversation. They can form themselves as vigilante group or association, and always knock on the door of their local government officer or Councillor.
- They can forward a freedom of information request letter to the local government chairman to request for their budget immediately it passes the enactment stage, and even ask more question like who is the contractor, what is the work plan for the project, how much is the contractor getting, and when will the project be concluded. Here is an example of a freedom of information letter if you want to write one
- Government at the local government and state government level should starting providing platforms as well, for the assesement stage. E.g. using local radio programmes like Jigida, create a referendum mechanism for your local government area for people to have their say on projects proposed for next financial year. It should not be only during elections, that citizens see chairmen of local government or governors of states canvassing for votes.
- Like I always say, the budget is not only the means by which government declare their spending, in fact 50% – 60% of what’s on it might not be relevant. The other way is to always listen to the state news on your local radio, projects will be announced at all times, especially when they are project funded by other partners, such as the federal government or international donor agencies.
Ijiwere and Giringori have decided to do away with social gatherings, and focus on becoming a vigilante for community projects in Jigida, and if you are reading this, you should be towing same way, and you should share this piece. I look forward to the final drama series on this – If you have listened to Story Story, Voices from the Market program, then you should be more expectant. See you all in Kagara town, listening to Jigida on radio!
From left, Oludotun Babayemi, Nkem and the BBC Media Action Writers
Helpful information. Fortunate me I discovered your website accidentally, and I am stunned
why this coincidence did not came about earlier!
I bookmarked it.
thank so a lot for your website it helps a whole lot.
link
I got this website from my pal who informed me about this web page and now this time I am browsing
this web site and reading very informative content at this time.
My family all the time say that I am killing my time here at web,
except I know I am getting knowledge everyday by reading thes fastidious content.
Feel free to surf to my web blog payday loans
This design is incredible! You most certainly know how to keep a reader entertained.
Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved to start my own blog
(well, almost…HaHa!) Great job. I really loved what you had
to say, and more than that, how you presented it.
Too cool!
%%
my website :: Best Day Moisturiser With Spf
THC gummies private label europe isolate:
THC isolate is the pure kind of THC.
I don’t know whether it’s just me or if perhaps everyone else
encountering problems with your site. It appears like some
of the written text in your posts are running off the screen. Can somebody else please
provide feedback and let me know if this is happening to
them too? This may be a problem with my browser because
I’ve had this happen previously. Appreciate it
I gotta favorite this site it seems handy very
helpful.
Here is my website :: restaurant discount
In addition to the variety of different THC products.
Stop by my webpage – Bookmarks
I blog often and I truly thank you for your information. Your
article has really peaked my interest. I’m going to bookmark your site and keep
checking for new details about once per week.
I subscribed to your Feed as well.
Warning ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️ this piece of shit of Pascal Calebout is back to Siem Reap.
!
Last sightseeing was on 15.08.2022 in Siem Reap where he did a run at a restaurant for 35 dollars.
He spent all the afternoon and evening there, working on his digital marketing
BS projects and of course conveniently forgot his wallet, left without paying.
A day earlier, on 14.08.2022 he proposed an expat in Siem Reap by messenger an annual Angkor Pass for USD 50.
1. Do some research on different THC gummies white label europe products.
Its such as you learn my mind! You seem to know a lot approximately this, like
you wrote the ebook in it or something. I believe that you just could do with a few % to pressure the message house a little bit, but
other than that, that is excellent blog. A fantastic read.
I’ll certainly be back.
Also visit my website; 메이저놀이터
THC isolate is pure THC gummies paris,
without any various other cannabinoids.
%%
Feel free to visit my homepage :: body moisturiser With spf (belaescolha.com.br)
Hello there! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick
shout out and say I genuinely enjoy reading through your articles.
Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums that cover
the same subjects? Thanks for your time!
What’s up to all, the contents present at this web page are in fact amazing
for people experience, well, keep up the good work fellows.
Hello to all, the contents existing at this site are
actually awesome for people knowledge, well, keep up the good work fellows.
Here is my web page; 먹튀검증
I do not know if it’s just me or if perhaps everyone else encountering problems with your website.
It appears like some of the written text in your posts are running off the screen. Can somebody else please
comment and let me know if this is happening to them as well?
This might be a issue with my browser because I’ve had this happen previously.
Appreciate it
Check out my blog: LeadsBase
Hi friends, its impressive piece of writing regarding educationand fully
defined, keep it up all the time.
My web blog – social media marketing melbourne florida
Hello my family member! I wish to say that this post is amazing,
nice written and include approximately all significant infos.
I would like to peer extra posts like this .
Also visit my blog post; Small Business
Hi there, always i used to check weblog posts here in the early hours in the daylight,
since i like to find out more and more.
Also visit my page Leads Base
Many thanks! This is an superb internet site!
link
Luk, and A. A. Kishk, “Miniature vast-band half U-slot and half E-shaped patch antennas,” IEEE Antennas Propag.
3. Chow, Y. L., Z. N. Chen, K. F. Lee, and K. M. Luk,
A design theory on broadband patch antennas with slot, IEEE Antennas Propag.
Huynh, T. and K. F. Lee, “Single-layer single-patch wideband microstrip antenna,” Electron. 6.
Clenet, M. and L. Shafai, “Multiple resonances and polarisation of U-slot patch antenna,” Electron. Simple options like manually checking annotations or having a number of employees label
each sample are expensive and waste effort on samples which
might be correct. Furthermore, as multiple prospects arrive and interact with the DTSM
system concurrently, a number of beforehand unstudied points arise.
Our focus is the use of vehicle routing heuristics within DTSM to assist retailers handle the availability
of time slots in actual time. SA shares information between slots and utterances
and only wants a simple structure to predict the supporting span.
Moreover, we supplement the annotation of supporting span for
MultiWOZ 2.1, which is the shortest span in utterances to assist the labeled value.
The contrastive loss aims to map slot value
contextual representations to the corresponding slot description representations.
Have a look at my blog post … สล็อตวอเลท
If some one needs to be updated with hottest technologies
therefore he must be pay a visit this website and be up to date every day.
My blog :: Leads Base
Hello, its good piece of writing regarding media print, we all understand media is a enormous source of
data.
Thanks for any other great article. The place else may just anyone get that kind of info in such
a perfect manner of writing? I have a presentation next week, and I am at the search for such information.
This text is priceless. Where can I find out more?
Truly….this is a invaluable website.
link
I have been browsing online more than 3 hours nowadays,
but I by no means found any interesting article
like yours. It is pretty worth sufficient for me. In my opinion, if all site owners and bloggers made just right content as you
did, the internet might be a lot more useful than ever
before.
Stop by my page … buy now pay later appliances
You can alter your alert preferences by going to the ‘My Alerts’ tab from your account
profile.
Here is my web blog: brigham and women’s hospital jobs
Heya i’m for the first time here. I found this board and I
find It truly helpful & it helped me out much. I hope
to give something again and help others like you aided me.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate your efforts and I am waiting for your
further post thanks once again.
Also visit my web page; seo melbourne fl
You have probably the greatest internet sites.
link
Can I simply say what a relief to uncover somebody who genuinely knows what they’re discussing over the
internet. You definitely realize how to bring a problem to light and make it important.
A lot more people should look at this and understand this side of the story.
I was surprised that you’re not more popular given that you certainly
have the gift.
Everything is very open with a clear explanation of the challenges.
It was truly informative. Your site is extremely helpful.
Thanks for sharing!
%%
Here is my homepage :: Window locks WS8
Everything is very open with a precise clarification of the challenges.
It was really informative. Your website is extremely helpful.
Thanks for sharing!
I don’t know whether it’s just me or if perhaps
everybody else experiencing issues with your website.
It seems like some of the text in your posts are running
off the screen. Can somebody else please provide feedback and let me know if this is happening rent to own furniture them as well?
This could be a issue with my internet browser because I’ve had this happen previously.
Thanks
If you wish for to get a great deal from this paragraph
then you have to apply such strategies to your won website.
I think the admin of this website is genuinely working hard for his
web page, for the reason that here every material is quality based
material.
Hello, I ddo thіnk your site could possibly be having weeb browser compɑtibility problems.
When I taқe a look аt your blog in Safari, it looks fine howｅver, if opening in I.E., it’s
got some overlаpping issues. I just wanted to give you a գuick һeads
up! Apadt from that, fantastic blog!
Ꮪome reallу nice and ᥙseful info ᧐n this site, besids I tһink thе style annd desiggn ϲontains great features.
What’s up mates, nice article and nice urging commented at this place, I am really enjoying by
these.
Ηі there!I could have sworn I’ve been to thіs website befⲟre bᥙt aafter reading thгough some of tһe
post I realized іt’s neѡ to me. Νonetheless,I’m Ԁefinitely delighted Ӏ fօᥙnd it and I’ll be bookmarking
and checking back οften!
And also the series of different THC gummies kaya products.
Hi there, I enjoy reading through your post. I like to write a little
comment to support you.
Thanks on your marvelous posting! I genuinely enjoyed reading it, you happen to be a great author.
I will be sure to bookmark your blog and will come back in the foreseeable future.
I want to encourage one to continue your great posts, have a nice day!
My site: social media marketing melbourne florida