OrderPaper Advocacy Initiative (OAI) has called on President Bola Tinubu to constitute the National Stakeholders Working Group (NSWG) of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).

Executive Director, OrderPaper Advocacy Initiative, Oke Epia, in a release, said the move would galvanize uptake of plans and activities by the management of the agency to keep raising the bar of transparency and accountability in the petroleum, and solid mineral sectors of the country. 

While lauding Nigeria’s rating by the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), where Nigeria scored 72 points in the international assessment, Epia said the decision would also improve on the country’s current score of 71.5 on implementing transparency-driven reforms in the extractive industry by the next assessment due in 2026.

“Overall, OAI believes that NEITI’s outing in the 11-month-long assessment is a notable testament to the agency’s strong commitment to fostering openness and accountability within the extractive industries,” he said.

According to him, OAI is particularly pleased that Nigeria scored an overall 72 points in the international assessment, which focused on three major thematic areas – transparency, stakeholders’ engagement and outcomes and impacts. 

That Nigeria, through the admirable efforts of NEITI, recorded an impressive score of 92 points on outcomes and impacts speaks to the agency’s conscientious and diligent work in promoting openness, accountability and civic enlightenment in the country’s extractive industries, Epia said.

However, he notes that the 52.5 points recorded on stakeholders’ engagements in the assessment calls for improved use of NEITI reports by civic actors and the general public. He urged NEITI to scale up engagements with civil society actors making an impact in the extractive space, especially concerning dissemination and making use of NEITI reports to mount needed public pressure on political authorities, regulators and indeed all entities (private and public) in the extractive sector to implement recommendations contained in its annual audits and other specialized publications.

Being a key partner with NEITI, OrderPaper would continue to deploy its revamped RemTrack platform to increase dissemination of and civic engagements with the audits and publications to the grassroots, especially host communities that continue to bear the brunt of extraction, production and processing of petroleum and solid minerals across the country, Epia said.