Lois Otse Adams
The Statistician-General of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Adeyemi Adeniyi, has assured the Open Government Partnership (OGP) team of his organisation’s support in ensuring that it achieves its objectives.
He gave the assurance when the National Coordinator of OGP Nigeria, Dr. Gloria Amhed, led a delegation to the NBS to intimate them on their role in the National Action Plan (NAP III) as the country’s data managers.
The NBS boss assured OGP of timely data and said that the visit was timely as the OGP needs data to run the affairs of both the private sector and the government.
“Although most data are published on the website, we would further be available to provide classified data for a healthy partnership. As much as we have them, we will not hesitate to provide them, and if there are cases when they need to generate data for a specific purpose, we are available,” he assured.
The OGP commenced another stage of its MDAs advocacy on 15th November 2022 ahead of the implementation of its Third National Action Plan (NAP III), having brought together stakeholders from member states to discuss issues, where it was realized that there is a dire need for the critical role of the NBS.
Recall that during the October 2022 OGP Steering Committee Retreat in Italy where a delegation was led by the Co-Chair, Non-State Actors, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, held in Rome, Italy, the OGP wowed to invest more energies in the people and communities, coalition and leaders that make bold change happen at the local, national and international levels.
The purpose of the stakeholders’ meeting is also to ensure that civil society organizations help to spread open government far beyond the OGP’s action by equipping citizens with necessary information.
The OGP National Coordinator said that the establishment of OGP allows citizens to make inputs in the formulation of government policies and hold the government accountable.
She further said that OGP is a coalition of reformers across the world, who came together to solve the lingering challenges facing the world, with a focus on accountability, transparency and inclusiveness of women, youths, people living with disabilities, etc.
The Civil Society Organizations Adviser, Uchenna Arisukwu, said the NBS repository data collection process makes it very important in the NAP III, adding that without the alignment of the OGP and NBS, the OGP may not be able to achieve maximum outcomes.
“With lots of processes from previous NAPS being reviewed, stakeholders want to work with accurate data and we do not want to work blindly.
Therefore, our purpose of this visit is to propose marriage to NBS to enable us achieve a better outcome for the next NAP.”
“Furthermore, the NAP III document would be sent to the NBS to make its inputs before the presidential signing and action afterwards,” he stated.
