RE: NIGERIA MAY LOOSE EITI CANDIDATE STATUS

Dear Editor

Re: Nigeria may loose EITI candidate status

I am writing to respond to the publication on Guardian Newspapers on Wednesday 14th of July where Mr. Ben Akabueze of Lagos State Government was credited with the above statement. Though I am not responding to this in any official capacity, however, as a Nigerian and someone closely associated with EITI implementation since inception in 2004, I am obliged to say that nothing can be farther from the truth. It is either that the respected official of Lagos State government needed to do more research on the current situation with NEITI secretariat and civil society partners or Mr. Sulamon Salau chose to misunderstand the speaker. Either way the fact of the matter is that the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has completed all the steps to make Nigeria become an EITI compliant country.

Indeed a comprehensive country validation report was submitted to the validation committee of the international board of the EITI more than two weeks ago. Nigeria has therefore beaten the dateline of September as specified that the international EITI board. It is expected that a positive decision will be taken by the EITI board on the Nigerian compliant status when they meet in October in Tanzania.

This response was necessitated by the need to ensure that all the readers of Guardian newspapers and watchers of NEITI globally do not get misinformed by what is clearly a misrepresentation of the issues. I am certain that NEITI secretariat will issue an official response in due course.

Indeed Nigeria is a foremost EITI implementing country and many countries that today have become compliant learnt from the Nigerian template. Indeed the Nigerian NEITI audit 1999-2004 went beyond the international EITI specification of revenue audit and conducted an exemplary physical and process audits. The NEITI Act 2007 is the first of its kind and has motivated several countries to fortify EITI implementation with an enabling law. Many of us, civil society partners of the NEITI process have already started our advocacy plan on how the expected compliant status will impact on the good governance in the Nigerian extractive industry beyond validation. I will be happy if you can publish this letter in your medium.

Thank you most sincerely.

Uche Igwe, Visiting Scholar, Africa Studies Program, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC.