He added that it was a deliberate move to enable the NEITI Secretariat to have a hold on the Committee.
A group of civil society organisations, Publish What You Pay (PWYP), has stated that the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) Guidelines Committee on the Board of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) failed to deliver a credible outcome because it lacks the independence it requires to function as a true representative of civil society.
Comrade Taiwo Otitolaye, PWYP Nigeria National Coordinator, made this known in a statement issued on Tuesday, explaining that NEITI's Director of Communications and Stakeholders Management, Mrs Obiageli Onuorah presided over the constitution of the committee and handpicked the majority of its members.
He added that it was a deliberate move to enable the NEITI Secretariat to have a hold on the Committee.
He said, "It is necessary to appropriately situate the reasons why NEITI CSOs Guidelines Committee has failed to deliver credible outcomes.
"The major reason is that the committee lacks the independence it requires to function as a true representative of civil society in the NEITI process. This is traceable to its origin, background and composition.
"You will recall that this committee was constituted by the NEITI secretariat at an event organised by the agency in August 2023. The hidden agenda by the NEITI Secretariat was to manipulate and determine who represents civil society on the Board of NEITI - a process that is expected to be independent of government in accordance with the global EITI standard.
"As a matter of fact, NEITI's Director of Communication, Mrs Obiageli Onuorah presided over the constitution of the committee and handpicked the majority of its members. This was deliberate to enable the NEITI Secretariat to have a hold on the Committee.
"This also explains why the committee is being teleguided and manipulated by the NEITI Secretariat, clearly violating the EITI requirement on the independence of civil society.
"I call for the release of the recording of the meeting procedures which was both physical and online to validate the true position.
"Recall that in the preamble of my resignation letter from the Committee, I did state: ‘For the spirit of true reconciliation, I have tried to accommodate the excesses and manipulations of the Committee since inception in August 2023.’
"And in item 4, also I stated that I have tried to stoop down so that we can move forward but the Committee has proven beyond reasonable doubt that it was designed to perpetuate a pre-determined agenda of the NEITI secretariat.
"Except for the willfully persuaded persons, it is clear that these whole manipulations cannot produce credible outcomes.
"For several weeks now, the committee was stocked and couldn't proceed with the election that was to have ended in March 2024 because the committee is caught up in the consequences of the manipulative exigencies it was designed to achieve.
"Today is the 19th of April, the committee has just woken up from the chambers of an illusory castle to respond to my resignation letter which I circulated to wider CSOs.
"Like I said earlier, let NEITI and the committee produce the recorded video of proceedings of and constitution of the committee.”
"Please, ignore any further instructions from the committee because it's only doing the bidding of NEITI management that set it up. Nothing good will come out of it," he added.