Yiaga Africa Seeks Increased use of New Media for Transparency in Governance.

Gilbert Ekugbe

Yiaga Africa has called on the legislative arm of government to increase the use of new media to drive transparency and accountability in governance.

The Coordinator, Yiaga Africa Centre for Legislative Engagement, Samuel Oguche, at the inaugural retreat for the House Committee, Media and Public Affairs, Samuel Oguche, said new media is a potent tool for shaping public opinion, fostering political engagements and driving positive change in Nigeria.

He called on the legislators to leverage the new media, including digital and social media platforms, to influence public perception.
Speaking on the retreat, he said was aimed at giving the participants the platform to brainstorm on issues that will drive the activities of the committee to meet public expectations.

“This committee has been able to open new frontiers to public affairs and information dissemination. This legislature can be doing its best, but when the information is not put out there, the people will not know how far they have come,” he said.

Also speaking, the Chairman, House Committee, Media and Public Affairs, Akintunde Rotimi, said the Committee is having critical engagements with many stakeholders to get feedback on their perceptions about the Assembly.

“This tenth assembly is out to address perception issues around the national assembly and ensure that we have greater open lines with Nigerians,” he said.

He, however called on President Bola Tinubu, to urgently address issues bothering on insecurity and inflation in the country.

“We cannot deny that these are difficult times and we also cannot deny the fact that insecurity is at its all time high. We are calling President Bola Tinubu to exercise some more urgency to address insecurity and economic hardships,” he urged.

In his words, “We interface with our constituents and we know these are desperate times calling for urgent measures to be taken. We are working towards holding the executive arm of government to carrying out immediate urgent actions to stem the tides of insecurity. Almost every inch of Nigeria is facing insecurity challenges and almost everybody is hungry and we need the President to act swiftly and we believe in the President and we know is taking very serious choices and decisions, but we are calling on more immediate measures to help Nigerians get through these difficult times.”

On his part, the Executive Director, International Press Centre, Mr. Lanre Arogundade, urged the legislatures to invest and build powerful media teams that monitors the new and social media teams to harvest information on trending public interest issues particularly as they pertain to the National Assembly.