Two civil society organizations, Human Rights Advancement Development and Advocacy Centre (HURIDAC) and the Centre for Anti Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL) on Tuesday unveiled a publication titled, Commitment and Completion: A Compendium of Promises Made and Kept by The Lagos State Government.
The event which took place in Lagos, had the executive directors of HURIDAC and CACOL, Ayodele Ameen and Debo Adeniran both in attendance and they spoke on the publication of the compendium, which is a factual compilation of the campaign promises of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu during his campaign for office in 2019 and the benchmarking of those promises with the reality on ground after four years tenure in 2023.
Comrade Debo Adeniran said that the compendium is a product of hard work of holding the government accountable for its campaign promises after four years which is a joint effort of both HURIDAC and CACOL, in collaboration with CISLAC, with the support from MacArthur foundation.
He noted that while the government has done very well in some areas, some other areas need improvement, but in all, he gave the government a pass mark for living up to it’s campaign promises by completing projects which it inherited and some that it initiated, as well as for remaining on course on projects which are a carryover into its second tenure from the first term, such as the Lagos Red Rail Mass Transit Line among several others.
Mr. Ayodele Ameen, Executive Director of HURIDAC, lauded the efforts and boldness put into compiling the works and activities of the Lagos State Government by juxtaposing it with the campaign promises made by the government at the end of a four years tenure.
Ameen said that a qualitative and quantitative matrix score was used to assess the performance of the government vis -a -vis it’s promises in the publication.
Ms Mfon Enoidem of HURIDAC and Mr Tola Oresanwo of CACOL, the project managers of the compendium, also spoke extensively on the methodology adopted in carrying out the work which included exhaustive review, categorization and stakeholders engagement among others.
They said that a work of such nature comes with a lot of risk and mitigation which should not be a reason for not embarking on societal engagement for the collective benefit of all.
They recognized that the compendium is a means to an end and not an end in itself, just as they charged citizens to always hold government at all levels accountable by benchmarking their campaign promises with the reality of work done after it’s term in office.
