By Kenneth Afor |
A group of experts and analysts in public policy and governance have advised that accountability and responsiveness while in office have proven to be ways in rebuilding trust among citizens in the country.
This was disclosed in a virtual conference organised by Connected Development (CODE), July 16, 2020.
It has been discovered that citizens are gradually losing interest in governance and in those that occupy sensitive positions in government due to the abuse of power, unethical conduct, and misappropriation of funds by these officeholders.
This, however, has dented the image of the institutions thereby resulting in a build-up of lack of trust among the citizens.
Although, Nigeria is not the only country where there is a lack of trust in office holders by the citizens.
According to Dr. Hadiza Balarabe, deputy governor, Kaduna State, the impression that citizens have of government officials keeping public funds for themselves is quite unfortunate adding that the state government has been responding to the yearnings of the people by providing them in which it has rebuilt the trust on officeholders among the people.
“In Kaduna, we are trying to dispel this misconception by reforming the public sector and entrenching merit in our recruitment process of public officials.
“We will continue to restore confidence and rebuild this trust in our people by committing to being reliable, responsive, transparent, and having better regulations,” she cited.
On the other hand, citizens were advised to always speak about major developmental progress in the country and also take it as a duty to carry out their civic responsibilities when called upon by paying attention to politics, participating, rejigging the federalism and changing the electoral system, according to Dr. Amina Salihu, senior programme officer, MacArthur Foundation.
According to Fisayo Soyombo, an Investigative Journalist, rebuilding trust in institutions is also a responsibility of the media. Fisayo, in his remarks, charged journalists to be active in their duties stressing the need for more Investigative reporting and objectivity in the reportage of events.
The decline in trust is traceable to some things and reasons, and issues like the current corruption allegations in NDDC awarding billions to themselves in so-called COVID- palliatives will continue to dispel public trust.
Dr. Joe Abah opined that leaders must take initiative, rise to the occasion of responsibility, and show examples for people to start believing in the system, stressing that there is the need for public officials to openly declare their assets. The government constantly going against its laws and policies is a breach of trust. For example; the recovered funds from Abacha loots were shared without a clear identification database where citizens can see how it was being shared. What’s worse is that it was shared in cash which goes against the government’s rules on cashless banking.
On the role of the citizens in building trust; “You can only rebuild trust by trusting, citizens need to hold the government accountable and monitor them. Even if you don’t trust the government, we need to continue to engage and also put in mechanisms to make it difficult for people to breach trust”.
A lot on rebuilding trust in institutions can be achieved if like-minded organisations like CODE join forces to create platforms for informed debate between public institutions and citizens and also advocate for more government agencies to leverage digital communications to foster trust, increase transparency and ensure better accountability. This has led us to organise this conference that seeks to increase conversations and raise citizens and the government’s consciousness towards rebuilding trust.
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