Recently, BudgIT, a civic organization, which purports to be advocating for transparency and accountability in public finance, picked on the government of Dr. Ahmed Aliyu in Sokoto state and accused it of lacking in fiscal transparency. The group’s reason for going this low was that the Sokoto state budget was not uploaded to the state website. Though the group plays an important role in analyzing and evaluating government financial information, its negative portrayal of the Sokoto State government’s online financial transparency deserves a critical analysis to ensure balanced and constructive discourse to ensure it was not pursuing a clandestine goal.
First, it must be noted that State Governments in Nigeria are not constitutionally beholding to BudgIT, or any other civic organisation with details of their financial transactions. Such information, where necessary, is usually made available to the State House of Assembly, which is the body constitutionally empowered to represent the people of the state. Besides, the State Houses of Assembly have Public Account Committees whose statutory function is, among others, to hold the executive in the state to account for its income and expenditures.
This, perhaps, was the reason there had been a contest over the release of state information to civic organisations on the grounds of the Freedom of Information (FOI) law. Senior Advocate of Nigeria and constitutional law expert, Prof. Itse Sagay argued that the FOI Act needs to be domesticated at the state level before being binding on state governments. He said: “This is a federation. Quite a number of the federal laws do not apply to states. For example, the Child Rights Act does not apply to states. A state has to make its own. With regard to the FOI Act, the states have to pass their laws too. It doesn’t bind the states at all.” Emeka Ngige, also a Senior Advocate of Nigeria argued alongside Prof. Sagay. He said: “The only way the FOI Act can apply at the state level is where the state decides to re-enact the provisions of the Act in their own local legislation, like in Ekiti State.” According to him, Section 3 of the FOI Act listed the public institutions which were required to provide their records upon request and that only federal institutions are listed.
It was based on this that a governor of Kaduna state, in the past, rejected an FOI request from a civic organisation, on the finances of the state. The governor insisted that the state government was answerable only to tax-paying citizens, corporate and private, domiciled in Kaduna state; and not to organisations based outside the state. Several other states had, using the same argument, rejected FOI requests from civic groups on the finances of their states.
However, BudgIT’s portrayal of Sokoto state came from its analysis of information on the state website. The appraisal of the state failed to list clear and objective criteria. Therefore, if its benchmark for transparency are not publicly defined or uniformly applied across states, their appraisal would be viewed as subjective. This is why many people in the state have dismissed the report as vague and potentially biased.
For instance, Sokoto State, like many states in Nigeria, face infrastructural, logistical, and resource constraints affecting its digital financial disclosures. BudgIT’s evaluation should account for these challenges while offering realistic recommendations tailored to local contexts. For instance, limited technical capacity or funding constraints in building robust digital platforms could impact Sokoto State’s online information dissemination performance, and failing to address these factors would lead to unfair appraisal.
General statements about poor online financial transparency also fail to provide actionable insights for the Sokoto State Government. For example, BudgIT could specify whether the state’s shortcomings lie in budget publication, audited financial reports, citizen-focused content, or platform usability. Also, it could make specific recommendations, rather than broad criticism, which add no value to the discourse but present its report as politically machinated.
Besides, the fiscal administration of Sokoto state, under the care of Governor Aliyu, has been marked by prudence, transparency and accountability. For emphasis, the governor has publicly demonstrated a capacity for prudent fiscal management. To this end, the governor has been able to work the finances of the state to implement strategic intervention projects in housing, urban development and renewal, infrastructural upgrade and development as well as welfare programmes that directly impact positively on the lives of the people of the state including education, healthcare, food supply, agricultural development, livestock production etc., without taking loans either from local banks or foreign lending organisations.
Also, despite gradually turning Sokoto into a construction site, with high-value projects that impact the lives of the people, the state government currently owes no contractor, local or foreign. All financial transactions of the state are executed in line with the Appropriation Act of the state as passed into law by the State House of Assembly and duly assented to by the governor. Despite these, the state is challenged by the incidences of insecurity which has forced the state government to invest heavily in ensuring that people living in the state are protected against the activities of non-state actors.
Therefore, had the group cared enough to focus on these indicators, it would have come to terms with the reality of the fact that not updating the website of a state government with information about the state’s budget does not account for the transgression of the requirement for transparency by the laws of the state. This may also be because IT infrastructure in states of the federation is not as good in the northern parts of the country as they are in the southern divide.
Meanwhile, it is also not impossible that whatever statistics the group used to arrive at its conclusion is an overflow from the immediate past administration, which a judicial commission has found wanting in the area of prudent management of state resources. Even officials of the past administration are still to come to terms with how much the then-governor spent on private jet hire and how much of the state resources went into his failed presidential chase.
It will be recalled that just recently, Governor Aliyu inaugurated several committees to monitor project implementation across the three senatorial zones of the state. He also charged his appointees to ensure project monitoring in line with due process and budgetary provisions. Their mandate includes ensuring that projects meet contractual terms in quality, delivery time, and cost.
However, while BudgIT’s commitment to financial transparency may seem commendable, its critique of the state government’s online financial information should be constructive, specific, and balanced. It ought to understand that by contextualizing challenges, acknowledging progress, and fostering dialogue, it can enhance its role as a partner in driving financial transparency and accountability across Nigeria.