EFFECTIVE PARTICIPATION IN THE APRM REPORT VALIDATION EXERCISE

Since Nigeria’s acceptance of the African peer review mechanism a few years ago, the country has made concerted efforts to fulfil the basic obligations leading to the process of review by her peers who form the committee of participating heads of state and government.

One of such efforts is the conduct of self assessment within the framework of such values like political leadership at the highest level. The self assessment was equally concluded along the lines of the codes and standards contained in the NEPAD declaration on good governance. It was undertaken by the African peer review mechanism on four governance areas; political governance, economic government and management, corporate governance and socio-economic development.

The report of this assessment chronicles the views of Nigerian citizens on the quality of governance of the country and proffers a roadmap for addressing challenges and weaknesses with the view to evolving better governance. Another important effort is the National Programme of Action which is being developed to incorporate the Yar’adua administration’s 7-point agenda with the view to achieving security, political stability as well as adding value to the national initiative for sustainable development.

The report of the assessment has already been adopted for presentation at a summit of the African peer review APR forum in June next year. Remarkably, core activities on the roadmap include nationwide validation of the country’s self assessment report, national programme of action and visit of the country review mission from the continental secretariat. The self assessment was done using the African peer review mechanism master questionnaire as a guide as well as tossup mass household survey.

It is heart-warming that the report is now ready for validation, beginning from today with nationwide workshops. Participants in this workshop will include members of state houses of assembly, judiciary and local government administration, civil society organizations, private sector, academia, labor and trade unions, as well as professional bodies. The objective of the workshop is to present the country’s self assessment report to Nigerians and elicit their reactions towards enriching the findings and recommendations contained therein. This will lead to the production of a National Programme of Action for ensuring good governance in Nigeria.

The success of this validation depends on the active participation of Nigerians in the exercise. In the first instance, it is expected that after the successful validation and eventual adoption of the validated country’s self assessment report, as well as the national programme of action, the document will be forwarded to the African peer review continental secretariat. This indicates Nigeria’s readiness for a review and a request for country review machine. The process will eventually lead to Nigeria being peer reviewed at the 9th summit of the African peer review forum next year.

The validation of the assessment report is an important process of adopting policies and practices leading to the enthronement of better political, economic and corporate governance values. Considering Nigeria’s enviable position in Africa, the country cannot afford to fail in this process of being reviewed. All hands must therefore be on deck to ensure that this validation is successful.