Understanding CEMP and how ENetSuD will carry out need assessments of 193 wards across Kwara

Being a presentation made during the first Press Conference at Correspondents Chapel on 6th July 2022

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Please, permit me to stand on the existing protocols.

Citizens Enlightenment and Mobilization Program (CEMP) is an existing program under ENetSuD’s Directorate of Community Services.

CEMP was created to raise citizens’ awareness of good governance, transparency, and accountability, with more emphasis on how to empower citizens to get involved in governance.

Most rural dwellers are only being used by politicians to gain votes, as the number of polling units and vote counts that come from the rural villages in Kwara are so high that politicians rely on the rural communities for electioneering purposes.

However, the rural communities are not getting good governance in return for their electoral strength.

The creation of CEMP by ENetSuD was informed by our observation that citizens, especially in the rural communities, are not aware that they are entitled to good governance, social amenities, and quality service delivery from the government. They believe that their civic responsibilities end with voting once every four years.

The lack of citizens’ involvement in governance has also significantly contributed to the usual conspiratorial diversion of public funds by state actors and bureaucrats, leading to a lack of provision of basic amenities and required services to the people.

Our fieldwork and community engagements also revealed that even the little projects executed by successive governments are politically-motivated without a proper and scientific needs assessment of the end-users in the communities. This has a perilous effect on the value for taxpayers’ money being spent by successive governments on unsustainable projects.

CEMP has come to provide four things: (i) to assess the needs of communities in all the 193 wards in Kwara state; (ii) to train community‐based organizations across the State, empower them to be able to demand probity and accountability, and be advocates of good governance through participation in needs assessment and budgeting; (iii) to promote good governance by ensuring the provision of essential basic amenities and services to the people; and (iv) to promote citizens-government engagement and information sharing on community needs through the ENetSuD App.

ENetSuD will carry out the project within 6 months as contained in our MoU with the Gobir Organization Foundation (GOF), who undertakes to support the program with a sum of 26.5 million, out of which 10 million naira has been received by ENetSuD as of today.

We’ll start the program from Kwara South Senatorial District, followed by Kwara North, and finally, we’ll conclude the exercise with Kwara Central.

In addition to providing our report to the GOF for community intervention and stakeholders engagement, we’ll publish it to the members of the public. This will attract helpers in the public to communities in need of help. It will also help the government to capture some of the needs in the appropriation bill for possible solutions to the identified problems.

As a creative Civil Society Organization with foresight, we have planned for the sustainability of the CEMP program and its needs assessment components beyond the 6 months of the partnership with GOF. Our recently launched ENetSuD App, which is currently being used by citizens, will be an avenue through which citizens across Kwara can take their destiny into their hands. The App will enable them to capture the needs of their communities and facilitate them to their localities anywhere they are. It will also promote citizens-government engagement as it has been configured to alert elected representatives of community needs when citizens request through the App.

Since its creation in late 2020, CEMP has helped in facilitating projects, especially potable water, to so many rural communities in Moro, Asa, and Patigi LGAs.

The success of our pilot CEMP program across these LGAs is an assurance that the robust needs assessment across 193 wards sponsored by GOF will also be a huge success.

We will practice what we preach. Every kobo received from GOF and spent on this project will be properly accounted for. We track government. We are also ready to be tracked. We dig, and we are ready to be dug.

Thank you all.

Fatima Bintu Dikko,
Ag. Director of Community Services,
Elites Network for Sustainable Development (ENetSuD),
6th July, 2022

To Download the Project Description Document for CEMP, click on
CEMP Project Description