Posted Mon, Mar 27, 2023 10:58 AM

President Buhari Commends NESG on Open Government Partnership

The president of the federal republic of Nigeria, His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari GCFR, recently commended the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) on the success of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative which is chaired by the Honourable minister of state, Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba and the Chief Operating Officer/ senior fellow, public policy and strategy management of the NESG, Dr Tayo Aduloju.

In his letter dated 14th March 2023 to the NESG, President Buhari thanked the OGP National steering committee in Nigeria, chaired by Prince Clem Agba and Dr Tayo Aduloju for taking the lead to make the OGP a reality while assuring the development partners and the international community who supported the process of developing the OGP action plan of Nigeria's commitment to fostering more inclusiveness to policy approaches that strengthen institutions for the remaining period in office.

President Buhari noted that the OGP has further expanded and increased citizens' role in monitoring government programmes and projects using technology through the “eye mark” and "presidential delivery tracker" that allows citizens to track, monitor and contribute to the implementation of federal government projects real-time and increased citizen participation in the budget process as reflected in the last open budget survey 2021.  

President Muhammadu Buhari also reiterated the need to rebuild the trust of stakeholders in public institutions, noting that this can be achieved through the implementation of the OGP National Action Plan III, which will help increase transparency and accountability and eventually help achieve national prosperity.

It can be recalled that on the 19th of December 2019, representatives of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning became substantive Co-chairs of the open government partnership (OGP) Nigeria for the next two years. The representatives of the NESG served 2 years as incoming Co-Chair, 2 years as Substantive Co-Chair Non-State Actor with the term expiring in August 2022 before the President graciously asked the NESG to continue to serve until after the general elections.

The OGP is a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from national and subnational governments to promote open government, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. In the spirit of multi-stakeholder collaboration, OGP is overseen by a steering committee, including representatives of governments and civil society organizations.

OGP participating countries co-create a National Action Plan (NAP) with civil society. The action plans are "the driving device" for OGP as it is the instrument through which government and civil society develop their agreed reforms, or commitments, every two years.