Transparency platform, Tracka, has taken its civic education program to more rural communities across Nigeria as it bids to kill the culture of stomach infrastructure.
Tracka has recently extended it civic education program starting with translation of its content to Hausa language in a bid to reach even more people in northern Nigeria.
Stomach infrastructure is a political tactic deployed by Nigerian politicians to lure, cajole and con electorate into voting for a particular political party or politician in exchange for money, food items or household materials.
In a bid to curb and possibly eradicate stomach infrastructure, Tracka has embarked on the lofty mission of educating Nigerians on why their votes should not be traded for their future.
Tracka is out to kill the culture of stomach infrastructure in Nigeria, this is why we take civic education to rural communities. Say NO to stomach infrastructure. Get your PVC vote the right person that will bring development to your communities. @APCNigeria @OfficialPDPNig pic.twitter.com/bXKJP1UraD
— Tracka.ng (@TrackaNG) August 13, 2018
Tracka, a project by BudgIT enables people to collaborate, track and give feedback on public projects in their community.
Since 2014, Tracka has tracked over 13000 constituency projects and has engaged over 6000 communities across 20 states in the Nigeria.
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According to the transparency platform, the focus on constituency projects is borne out of necessity to include citizens in community development and accountability.
As part of its civic education, Tracka provides information to citizens on projects nominated by their representatives and available in the budget.
“We inform them lawmakers are not in control of the finances or awarding contracts. This is a function of the MDAs,” Tracka said via its Twitter handle.
The transparency platform explained its reasons for continuously demanding that lawmakers perform oversight functions.
“The legislators are in better position to perform oversight function on the execution of projects in their constituency by reaching out to the agency where the projects domicile.
“Community members cannot access MDAs as easily as they access the elected lawmakers, therefore lawmakers should proactively provide details on projects to their constituencies.
“Civil society organisation and citizens of the constituents also have the right to engage both the legislature and executive to request locations and implementation status of projects captured in the budget,” Tracka explained.
But Tracka’s quest for accountability has had its challenges especially those posed by the lawmakers.
Chronicle NG has observed that 98 per cent of lawmakers have either ignored or refuse to respond to Tracka’s accountability and transparency requests.
