The Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism, (PTCIJ) has officially launched online fact-checking platforms, Dubawa and Udeme as well as an initiative focusing on Nigeria’s public procurement and budget implementation practice.
The platforms proposes to unmask misinformation and propaganda in the public domain and ultimately empower Nigerians with the knowledge necessary for making rational decisions as well as serve as a direct response to problems of budget implementation, accountability and transparency.
Dubawa is an independent verification and fact checking platform aimed at amplifying the culture of truth in public discourse, public policy, and journalistic practice.
Udeme is a civic technology that enables citizens and the media track, investigate and report any form of corruption in the procurement process and the implementation of capital allocation projects in the past and present national and state budgets.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), PTCIJ, Mr. Dapo Olorunyomi, assured Nigerians that the platforms will keep working tirelessly to monitor and make citizens aware of any budget implementation and allocation.
In his presentation “Role of advocacy in budget tracking” the Executive Director, Africa Centre for leadership, strategy and Development, Dr. Otive Igbuzo, explained that budget is perhaps the most important instrument in any modern state apart from the constitution.
He said focus on budget has assumed greater prominence in recent years with increasing democratization, civil society participation and the desire to respond to the development challenge of poverty.
According to him, in Nigeria, the return to civilian rule in 1999 after many years of military rule not only put issues of budget in the public domain but brought out the role of parliamentarians, the media and the citizens in the budgetary process.
A human rights activist and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Femi Falana described the launch of the platforms as a challenge to Nigerians and suggested that it should help in monitoring budget implementation, even at the state and local government.
Speaking on the topic “The Place of Constituency project in Nigeria’s Infrastructural and Democratic Development” the Senator representing Kaduna Central District, Shehu Sani said constituency projects have no place in Nigeria’s democratic or constitutional development.
The senator proposed an agency should bet established with the responsibility of executing of constituency projects for the lawmakers to concentrate on lawmaking.
