In January 2023, the Bauchi State Urban Water & Sewerage Corporation (BSUWSC) set out to enhance customer feedback mechanisms by developing an electronic complaint tracking system.

Under the State Action on Business Enabling Reforms (SABER) initiative, the state allocated N6 million to build a website, Facebook page and WhatsApp platform that would centralise feedback, improve customer records and streamline bill payments.

The project was scheduled for completion by December 2023. The BERAP report for the said year had also designated the project as ‘ongoing’. It reported that the agency already had a website, a Facebook page and a WhatsApp number.

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It even documented that the agency’s next step was to make links to the numbers, the Facebook page and the website public.

Yet, in 2025 — two years after the deadline — there is no functioning website for the agency. The URL designated for the page, as documented by Development Aid, is empty and does not link to any active page.

FIJ has observed this since Monday. When FIJ checked, BSUWSC pointed to its Facebook page, but the most recent activity was a single post from December, congratulating civil servants on a new minimum wage.

Curiously, the 2025 Business Enabling Reform Action Plan (BERAP) has allocated another N5 million to BSUWSC for the exact same purpose: developing an interactive website to promote feedback management.

UNFINISHED OR ABANDONED

Bauchi’s questionable digital projects are not confined to its water agency. In 2023, N1 million was allocated to train staff under the Ministry of Land on the use of ICT facilities and new technologies.

The training was designed to support the use of geo-servers to capture Bauchi State’s geographic information system (BAGIS) data. The ministry reported that a website was developed and launched for public access.

FIJ found indicators that a training programme was indeed carried out. Sivian Design Company, a design and tech company, had published images of new desktops, offices and training sessions.

However, there are no active websites for the Ministry of Land or BAGIS. Instead, only a section on the state’s official website hosts documents related to land records, fees and service-level agreements.

The discrepancies in implementation beg the question of how SABER funds are used. The SABER project itself is designed as the successor to the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) programme.

It is backed by a $750 million World Bank fund to drive governance reforms across Nigerian states. A key component of these reforms is the improvement of land administration, regulatory frameworks and investment promotion through digitisation.

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Bauchi is not alone in this trend of stalled or recycled projects.

In 2023, Sokoto State allocated N48.5 million for business reforms, including four website projects. Less than a year after their designated completion, most of those websites were either non-functional or entirely absent.

The failure of these projects contradicts the guidelines set by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) which mandate that government websites must remain accessible every day of the week.