Lack of awareness hindering citizens from demanding their rights on social media – Kates

The Head of Stears Open Data American in Nigeria, Hannah Kates, has described lack of awareness as one of the challenges hindering citizens from demanding their rights through social media.

Speaking at the New Media, Citizens and Governance Conference (TNCG) in Lagos, on Thursday, Kates stressed that awareness of appropriate channels would help in escalating citizens’ concerns to the right people who could address them.

She said, “There are two important things that citizens need in order to be able to address these issues. The first is an awareness of what the appropriate escalation channels are.

“You know, complaining into the void on the social generally isn’t gonna accomplish anything unless the right people see it, who have the ability to actually act on that feedback.

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“So, having an awareness of the right escalation channels – of like, which government ministries you should be adding, if there are certain reporters who have relationships at that ministry who can help kind of escalate the issue to the right people, figuring out how to send that feedback to the right people who can do something with it is really important.

“So, lack of awareness is something that is a big problem, and once you figure out who should actually be accountable for solving that problem or be held to account for some government service not operating correctly, there need to be actually systems for punishing those people in some way.

“Like, if they’ve broken the law, they should be taken to court or they should lose their jobs. There need to be functional institutions that actually give people the right justice.”