When the federal government launched its Citizens’ Delivery Tracker App in April, it promised Nigerians the opportunity to view ministries’ deliverables and key performance indices. This move, it said, would help Nigerians assess the Bola Tinubu administration, but six months later, it has not lived up to that promise.

APRIL 8, 2024 — Hadiza Bala-Usman, Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination and head of the Central Delivery Coordination Unit (CDCU), announced the app’s introduction.

According to Bala-Usman, the government was intent on making it easy for Nigerians to hold the administration accountable. Through an app she said was available on app.cdcu.gov.ng, the government would afford citizens the opportunity to monitor ministers’ performance indicators and projects.

“I am pleased to inform you that this promise has been delivered as the upgraded Citizens’ Delivery Tracker App, which will enable all citizens to view the deliverables and key performance indicators for all ministries and give their own assessment on the performance of each of the indicators, goes live today,” Bala-Usman said during the app’s launch.

“The Citizens’ Delivery Tracker is an application which affords citizens the opportunity to view the priority programmes and projects of the federal government on their devices.”

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She said the application would be available for download on Google Play Store and Appstore “within the next month”, but on Saturday, FIJ’s checks showed the only results for such an app, was a ‘Presidential Delivery Tracker’ with less than 1,000 downloads. This app was not compatible with Apple and android devices FIJ searched with.

FIJ went through the website Bala-Usman touted and found various issues with performance indicators and projects.

NO PROJECTS

The CDCU website opens with a list of the president’s eight priority areas; reform the economy, strengthen national security, boost agriculture, unlock energy and natural resources, enhance infrastructure and transportation, focus on education, health, and social investment, accelerate diversification, and improve governance.

FIJ toured through this page and combed through all eight priority areas. During this effort, FIJ observed that each priority area contained a list of contributing MDAs, and each MDA had a list of deliverables.

To track these deliverables, there were indicators to tell how well the MDA was doing and executed projects to go with it.

FIJ found that most of the listed MDAs had no listed executed projects. On the deliverables pages, they had 2023 baselines and 2024 targets, but without listed projects, citizens could not tell if they were meeting these deliverables or not.

The first priority area for the government is to reform the economy. To achieve this, the Federal Ministry of Finance (FMFIN) plays a crucial role. The Wale Edun-led ministry has 14 deliverables, one of which is to improve revenue generation and collection among all revenue-generating agencies.

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Indicators for this deliverable include hitting a total Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) annual generated revenue total of N19.40 trillion before 2024 ends. The ministry also hopes to hit N5.08 trillion for the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and N2.69 trillion for the other revenue-generating agencies.

Despite this indicator stating clear targets, the ministry has “No projects listed at this time”.

Edun’s ministry also intends on ‘deepening tax collection by restructuring and automating key revenue-generating MDAs’, but while it says it will take automation processes from 2023’s 90% to 100% in 2024, there are no projects to achieve this. The ministry has no indicators for its tax breaks introduction ‘for private sectors in respect of wage increases to low-income earners’.

CITIZENS’ INPUTS DON’T MATTER

Of the Finance Ministry’s 14 deliverables, the final one reads: ‘Initiate and implement citizens and stakeholder engagement sessions to communicate government activities and serve as feedback mechanism’.

However, as an indicator of success, the ministry hopes to go from zero number of citizens’ feedback received in 2023 to one in 2024. This number represents 0.0000005% of Nigeria’s 200 million population. Worse still, the ministry hopes to implement zero of these inputs.

With this indicator reading zero, if citizens were to rate this performance, then success for the ministry would mean receiving no more than one person’s feedback and rejecting the input outrightly.

The Atiku Bagudu-led Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning also hopes to implement none of the 10 citizens’ input it hopes to get.

BROKEN LINKS, ODD INDICATORS

According to data available on the website of the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), Nigeria has about 82,587 inmates in correctional facilities across the country. Of this number, 27,113 are convicted criminals, leaving 55,474 awaiting trial.

Meanwhile, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, Minister of Interior, plans to release 170,500 inmates in 2024 alone. This is more than three times the number of awaiting trial inmates, and more than double the total number of inmates.

The police arrest suspects regularly, and courts remand them in prisons, but with the Ministry of Police Affairs’ target of 50,000 criminal incidents in 2024, the interior ministry would not hit its 170,500 release target even if it let every inmate go.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Gaidem’s police ministry hopes to go from 36,610 apprehended criminals in 2023 to 42,000 in 2024, but prosecute only 18,000 of them. This represents a fall from 2023’s 29,052 prosecutions.

Although some MDAs had no listed projects, the Interior Ministry and Justice Ministry both listed projects for some of their deliverables.

However, these projects had links that led nowhere.

One project the interior ministry listed was: ‘Supply of 300,000 units of enhanced e-passport booklets to the Nigeria Immigration Service’. Underneath the project was a link, but when FIJ hit this link, it was blank.

The Lateef Fagbemi-led Ministry of Justice had the same link problem for its project on ‘Prosecution of Boko Haram, Terrorism and Related Cases’ project.

Although Bala-Usman preached the CDCU’s helpfulness, the implementation of this project has failed to live up to its billing six months after its launch.