By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government has reaffirmed its commitment to deepen implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) through the Nigerian chapter, NEITI.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr George Akume, made this commitment in Abuja while receiving a delegation from the global EITI, in Oslo, Norway on a working mission to Nigeria.
Mr Akume praised Nigeria’s performance in the recent EITI assessment and progress recorded by the country in the implementation of the initiative between 2019 and 2022.
“NEITI is an agency of the federal government, and the present administration is very proud of its impacts in providing reliable information and data that have helped tremendously in shaping the ongoing reforms in Nigeria’s oil, gas, and mining sectors.
“We have also found NEITI reports to be very useful in the areas of revenue generation, resource mobilisation, blocking leakages in the system, and a dependable data resource in the country’s sustained war against corruption.
“I want to acknowledge the report of the EITI Validation of Nigeria and to assure you that the federal government is already working on the report.
“From our preliminary reviews, we have noted with excitement that many areas that Nigeria excelled in that report, and the areas that our country requires improvements. The government is fully aware that we were assessed on three major indicators- outcomes/impacts, transparency as well as stakeholders engagements,” he said.
Mr Akume said that he was elated that Nigeria excelled on outcomes and impacts with a score of 92 per cent, over 70 per cent on transparency disclosures which shows that Nigeria is benefiting enormously from the implementation of the EITI, but requires more work and improvements in the areas of stakeholders engagements where Nigeria scored above 50 per cent.
He applauded the EITI for courageously highlighting specific areas where the country needed to correct and improve before the next validation which will take place in January 2026.
He further stated that Nigeria through NEITI is working assiduously to provide action plans that will remedy the gaps identified by the validation report before January 2026 the stipulated time given to Nigeria to address noticeable areas of improvement in the oil, gas, and mining industry sector reforms.
At an earlier media briefing at the NEITI House, the leader of the delegation, the Deputy Head of EITI Secretariat, Mr Bady Balde, explained that the team was in Nigeria to communicate to stakeholders as well as the Nigerian government, the outcome of the last validation exercise for Nigeria and proffer support for post-validation planning.
“We are also here to strengthen the country’s call to working with NEITI for the reconstitution of the MSG and to appeal to the government that the disruption of the NEITI structure and the Secretariat will always not augur well for continuity, institutionalisation, and sustainability,” he said.
He lamented that the NEITI Act 2007 establishes an independent entity that is supposed to function in a multi-stakeholder nature and supervise EITI implementation in the country. Unfortunately, that entity has not functioned as intended in the last two years due to the vacancy and sustained vacancy of the NSWG itself which is supposed to oversee the EITI in Nigeria.
“We hope that at the end of the mission, we will have a clearer sense of the timeline and the process of how quickly the NSWG can be reconstituted. This is a significant area of concern because NSWG is at the core of the EITI process,” he reaffirmed.
