Looking Back: Telling Stories of famine, devastation and child trafficking in Nigeria's IDP Camps
Blaise Aboh
AI & Automation | Enabling infrastructure delivery | AI for Planning and Consultation | AI Educator | AI for Public Services | Innovating UK | Host: Automating Inequality Show |
If government can build infrastructures as complex as bridges, why are these open data infrastructures hard to create?
Why does government not freely publish data? Why do they give vague replies to FOI request of certain data by citizens?
Why do they proceed to publish some of the same data when organizations and citizens mount pressure on them through social media advocacy and citizen action or when they need to salvage their image?
Let me give you an example, last month we wrote to NEMA asking for data related to donor and relief items. The reply we got was not satisfactory; no detailed data. A week after that we proceeded to mount pressure via series of tweets on twitter.
NEMA then messaged us saying that they collect and have data on relief distribution and many other operational processes but there exist numerous challenges to opening these data. They told us they were trying to overcome the challenges, so we asked that they send some of these data to us.
Four days after that conversation we didn’t hear from NEMA nor receive any data until a day after the ‘food’ protest by IDPs on Kano-Maiduguri way. NEMA tweeted screen shots of data related to food items delivered to the 6 North East states between July 2015 and June 2016 as means of saving face and cushioning backlash from the public saying they weren’t doing enough.
Why did they not send this data to us? Why wait for a protest before releasing data? While I am conscious of the ‘cultural’ challenges that exist in releasing information to the public, we know that if government is sincere about being transparent and accountable, they will find swift ways to surmount these issues.
The above are excerpts of an interview conversation I had with Adiya Atuluku in 2016 as my project IDP Tracker was on-going. I am thinking of revamping this project soon as I get the resources to do so.
For now, view some illustrations used in citizen enlighten, advocacy and institution engagement through that period below;
REBUILDING BORNO
POPULATION
DONATIONS; FOOD, CASH
CHILD TRAFFICKING, RAPE
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7yWelldone Orodata , this is quite enlightening. I must say it’s extremely disturbing what goes on in those IDP camps esp with the possibility of government officials been part of the perpetrators.