Osinbajo To Grace OGP Week In Abuja

Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo is to declare the open this year’s Open Government Week in Abuja.

Osinbajo, a statement from the Open Government Partnership (OGP) secretariat said he will be representing President Muhammadu Buhari who is currently out of the country on an official visit to the United States.

Others who will be in attendance include the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) who is the Co-Chair of the OGP in Nigeria, as well as Mr. Edeetan Ojo, founding director of Media Rights Agenda, who is also the civil society co-chair of the initiative.

The week, which is scheduled from May 7 – 11, is to create opportunities to learn about Open Government and showcase ways that citizens can interact with and influence the workings of government, a statement by Uche Igwe, Communications and Outreach Adviser of the OGP secretariat, read.

According to him, the OGP is a multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.

Igwe explained that the OGP which was formally launched in 2011 by 8 founding governments and now has 70 countries as members, with Nigeria being the 70th.

“Since its inception, OGP Nigeria in collaboration with relevant government departments, civil society and the private sector, has brought significant reforms in the areas of fiscal transparency, anti-corruption and asset disclosure as well as citizen’s engagement.

“A National Action Plan (NAP) co-created through a robust consultative process by a group of reformers drawn from civil society and government, consist of fourteen transformative commitments and several activities that are expected to lead to the translation of these commitments to action. Commendable progress has been made in several areas already including open budget, contract transparency, beneficial ownership transparency among others,’ the statement stated.

He further stated the event will take place simultaneously across the world in all OGP implementing countries.