The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Mr. Waziri Adio, has called on the citizens to take full control of the management of their natural resources by monitoring and demanding changes using the myriad of accountability instruments at their disposal such as the NEITI reports.
Mr. Adio further tasked the Nigerian government to mainstream and strengthen accountability and good governance mechanisms like the EITI in the management of the country’s natural resources.
He stated that the huge losses in revenues amounting to trillions of Naira were due to inefficiencies, poor governance and abuses which could otherwise have been avoided.
The executive secretary stated this while delivering the keynote speech titled “Preventing Corruption and Enhancing Transparency & Accountability in the Management of Revenues from the Extractive Sector: The NEITI experience” at the Academics Stand Against Corruption (ASAP) event held recently at the University of Lagos.
Giving some of the highlights contained in the NEITI 2013 Audit reports to buttress the need for Nigerians to take the reports more seriously, he explained that NEITI is a national chapter of the global EITI set up to ensure that there is transparency and accountability in the management of resources from Nigeria’s extractive sector.
Waziri Adio, explained that the EITI process empowers the citizen by providing information and data about the extractive sector which had been otherwise characterized by opacity. He however called on Nigerians to organize and make their voices count.
