CSO seeks stakeholders’ support in promoting civic engagement in Kano

A Civil Society Organization (CSO), the Center for Awareness on Justice and Accountability (CAJA), has launched a new project tagged “Strengthening Youth Capacity to Promote Civic Engagement in Kano State.”

SOLACEBASE reports that under the project, CAJA inaugurated a network of 75 democracy ambassadors who will monitor and engage with the elected officials in the state.

Speaking at the event on Sunday in Kano, the executive director of CAJA, Kabiru Saidu Dakata, said the project aims to hold the elected officials accountable for the promises they made during the election campaign period.

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Dakata said the project will also encourage the elected legislators to establish and maintain constituency offices in every constituency, and to communicate and collaborate with their constituents effectively.

According to him, the project was supported by the MacArthur Foundation through the Nigerian Women Trust Fund.

“The project will focus on the promises made by elected officials, especially the Kano State governor who made promises before being elected and now that he is leading the state, we need to go back to him and other people that he appointed to remind them of their promises.”

 “We need to engage elected legislators because they are supposed to have constituency offices in every constituency, but in most of the constituencies those offices are not available, so we want to go and engage them to find out where those offices, and in constituencies where those offices are not available we encourage them to set up those offices, and also we go back to community members and enlighten them to be part of the process, it is not just about electing officials and letting them go until the next elections come and vote them again, we enlighten them to make sure that their representatives do things that will touch their lives. “

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“We selected those ambassadors in each of the three senatorial zones that we have in Kano State, and the total number of the members we have is 75, the ambassadors will contribute a lot in creating awareness and promoting civic engagement in Kano State.”

“Today we brought all the relevant stakeholders to introduce the project to them and seek their buy-in to support the implementation of the project, as you can see we brought key stakeholders including government officials, traditional rulers, religious leaders, community-based organizations, students’ representatives, and the representatives of women groups and they gave their commitment and readiness to support the implementation of the project.”

 In his keynote address, the commissioner for rural and community development, who is also the supervising commissioner for the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development in Kano State, Alhaji Hamza Safiyanu Kachako, commended the effort of CAJA for creating awareness and promoting the accountability of democracy in the state.

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“CAJA has brought a new thing to our dear state, for doing proper awareness on democracy, justice and accountability, we are here to see the democracy ambassadors network in order to encourage them and give them the assurance that Kano State government will support them, we commend the effort of CAJA in promoting civic engagement in Kano State.”

On his part, the leader of the Democracy Ambassadors Network, Aminu Muktar Isa Wudil, said they will try their best to promote civic engagement in Kano State and they will not disappoint CAJA.

“We have our blueprint and we will gradually implement one after another, we will make sure we meet the goal and objective of this project by promoting civic engagement in every area of Kano, we will not disappoint CAJA.”