The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Mr. Waziri Adio, has expressed confidence that RemTrack, a mobile application for tracking transparency and accountability issues in the oil and gas sector, will add value to the work of his organization and called on citizens of Nigeria to take advantage of the platform for healthy and constructive engagements.
Mr. Adio’s position echoed those of other stakeholders who converged on Lagos, yesterday, to witness the formal public presentation of the technology tool developed and deployed by OrderPaper Advocacy Initiative in conjunction with the Civil Society Steering Committee (CSSC) of NEITI.
Delivering a keynote address before the unveiling of the app, the NEITI boss noted that the app is a major milestone in attempts to fix remediation issues arising from his agency’s reports, he explained that RemTrack has come to simplify the process of tracking issues and implementation of recommendations arising from periodic reports of the agency, and more importantly, to involve all stakeholders, whether players in the sector, journalists, civil society organisations and all citizens who have mobile devices, in the process of remediation.
“This is a major milestone for the Civil Society Steering Committee but also for us at the level of NEITI and also for the country as other people have mentioned,” he said, adding that “this is something that all Nigerians should take credit for, especially the people who midwifed the process.”
He urged Nigerians to engage the app so that its benefits could be unlocked for the overall benefit of the country, saying, “This signifies the quest to leverage on technology to solve problems. It is a very sensible and smart thing to do in the age that we live in. We live in an age that is the age of technology so, if we don’t take advantage of it, we are just shooting ourselves in the leg.” Mr. Kolawole Banwo, Chairman of the Civil Society Steering Committee of NEITI, said the RemTrack tool would enhance easy engagement by all and make accurate information readily available for use at any time.