By: Idumange John
Senior Special Assistant to the Governor of Bayelsa State on Research & Social Media
Introduction:
Transparency is one of the eight cardinal pillars of good governance.
In fact, it is the backbone of open government. Transparency is the easy
and unrestricted access to government information by the citizenry. It
im
plies the ability for the citizens to
see what is going on in their government and provide feedback on policy
packaging and implementation. Christian Wolff (2009) holds that
“Transparency and compliance with the rule of law are factors for
further development” President Obama espoused that “Transparency
promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what
their government is doing” Former United States Vice-President Al Gore
in The Assault on Reason posits that the Internet “is perhaps the
greatest source for hope for re-establishing an open communication
environment in which the conversation of democracy can flourish.” All
these assertions underscore the centrality of ICT in the promotion of
transparency in government.
Good governance has eight major
characteristics, but transparency stands out because only a transparent
government can be accountable enough to allow for participation of the
citizens in policy processes including adherence to the rule of law.
Other features of good governance such as equity, efficiency and
effectiveness depend on transparency.
Social media provides vast
opportunities to lead and communicate government policies to ensure aid
effectiveness by fighting corruption and enhancing political
accountability? Within the context of government, two types of
transparency can be identified. Radical transparency is a paradigm where
nearly all decision making processes are subjected to public scrutiny.
Corporate transparency, which is a variant of radical transparency,
implies the removal of all barriers to free and easy access to corporate
information. These include opening-up policy making and budgetary
processes; adherence to due process in the award of contracts; promoting
public participation in programmes affecting the people etc.
Since
the assumption of office of Governor Henry Seriake Dickson, deliberate
steps have been taken to promote transparency through the monthly
Transparency briefing, waging an open war against corruption,
verification of the payrolls and Vouchers to weed out ghost workers;
promoting an open bidding and tendering process and reconstitution of
major Boards, Agencies and parastatals to ensure they operate in tandem
with the transparency ethos of the Restoration Agenda. Government has
never wavered in this onerous responsibility.
Social Media: Social
Media has assumed the momentum of a revolution. Social media refers to
the publication and dissemination of media content such as text, images
and videos, through online social interactions via highly accessible and
scalable publishing platforms such as websites, social networking
sites, blogs and media aggregators. In spite of the popularization of
ICT and the fact that successful governments thrive on the core values
of transparency, most governments are still locked up inside the walls
of an office.
Social networking now accounts for 22% of all time
spent online in the US and part of Europe. A total of 234 million
people age 13 and older in the U.S. used mobile devices in December
2009. This has increased exponentially. Twitter processed more than one
billion tweets in December 2009 and averages almost 40 million tweets
per day. This has also tripled since then. Over 25% of U.S. internet
page views occurred at one of the top social networking sites in
December 2009, up from 13.8% a year before. Again, the number of social
media users age 65 and older grew 100 percent throughout 2010, so that
one in four people in that age group are now part of a social networking
site. As at June 2011 facebook has 750 Million, and whereas the
facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S and part of Europe,
the Social Media has overtaken pornography as the Number one activity on
the web. The overriding logic, which sustains the social media, is
Digital Darwinism- the survival of the loudest and most opinionated.
Social media and blogs are important components of journalism. In fact
it is a phenomenon that has assumed the momentum of a revolution in
Journalism. They narrow the distance between journalists and the public.
They encourage lively, immediate and spirited discussion. They can be
vital news-gathering and news-delivery tools. It is assumed that most
actors and bloggers are journalists who should uphold the same
professional and ethical standards of fairness, accuracy, truthfulness,
transparency and independence when using social media. Practitioners
must always remember that social media postings linger on as online
archives. Correct and clarify mistakes, whether they are factual
mistakes or mistakes of omission.
A media revolution on the social
media sphere is transforming, fundamentally and irrevocably, the nature
of journalism and its ethics. This implies that publishing is now in the
hands of citizens, while the internet encourages new forms of
journalism that are interactive and immediate. Our media ecology is a
chaotic landscape evolving at a furious pace. Professional journalists
share the journalistic sphere with tweeters, bloggers, citizen
journalists, and social media users and this expands the frontiers
Vivek Kundra (2011) in his Building the Digital Public Square asserted
that”…at the forefront of a new era of government is the Social Media
driven by the internet, which creates unfettered access to government.
Through these advances, constituents can hold their governments
accountable from the privacy of their homes. The DC is bringing people
closer to government, through collaborative technologies like wikis,
data feeds, videos and dashboards” Farzana Nawaz ( 2010) holds the
belief that the use of ICT is a cost-effective and convenient means of
using transparency to reduce corruption.
In Nigeria, with the
signing into law of the Freedom of Information, Act by Mr. President on
28thMay, 2011, we are now faced with the challenge of deploying the
Social media platform for effective management and dissemination of
information. In fact, it appears that there is a deluge of information
in the cyber space that our main challenge now is how to manage it for
the optimization of society’s ends, which is good governance.
It is
germane to draw a distinction between Social Media and the Conventional
Media. Both industrial and social media technologies are capable of
reaching a global audience, but industrial media, uses a centralized
framework for organization, production, and dissemination, whereas
social media are more decentralized, less hierarchical, and
distinguished by multiple points of production and utility. Essentially,
too the means of production for industrial media are typically
government and/or privately owned but social media tools are generally
available to the public at little or no cost; and this is why control is
very difficult.
In terms of usability, industrial media production
requires specialized skills and training, but the Social Media does not
require some training but emphasis is on a modest reinterpretation of
existing skills. Invariably, the time lag between communications
produced by industrial media can be long (days, weeks, or even months)
compared to social media, which is capable of virtually instantaneous
responses; only the participants determine any delay in response.
Industrial media, once created, cannot be altered (once a magazine
article is printed and distributed changes cannot be made to that same
article) whereas social media can be altered almost instantaneously by
comments or editing.
Efforts at Repositioning the Social Media in Bayelsa State:
For the past 4 months, the Social Media office in Bayelsa State appears
to be the most dynamic and vibrant in Nigeria. The Governor Dickson
administration has taken five major steps to ensure an active and
vibrant Social Media in the State.
Firstly, conscious of the
benefits of unifying and standardizing Social Media practice in the
State, Government through my office performed an inauguration of Social
Media Practitioners on May, 2nd, 2012 in Port Harcourt. The event was
successful as a total of 69 persons cutting across the cyber spectrum
were inaugurated and given certificates. The fall out of Port Harcourt
round for was the constitution of two Committee namely: Technical and
General to evolve strategies for unifying the practice in the State.
Now, a Constitution that would streamline Social Media Practice is in
the making.
Secondly, Government sponsored some members of the
Bayelsa New Media Team to attend the Ist African Conference on the New
Media and Good Governance in Abuja from May 14th to 15th, 2012. The
Conference exposed participants to the complex issues of cyber-space in a
fifth wave economy and how Bayelsa State can key into it.
Thirdly,
On July 7th 2012, the Bayelsa New Media Team was inaugurated. The
Deputy Governor who formally inaugurated the Bayelsa New Media Team on
behalf of the Governor H.S.Dickson presented certificates of merit to
worthy members of the Team. The high point of that event was the
presentation of lectures by two renowned scholars of Mass Communication
and Social Media who gave insights to the need for standardization of
the social media and use it as a tool for promoting good governance in
Bayelsa State.
In a paper titled Social Media Practice: Ethical
Issues, I called attention to the fact that the Dickson Administration
has already taken measures to strengthen existing institutions and
created new ones, namely, the Bayelsa State Income and Expenditure
Transparency Bill 2012, Reorganization of the bureaucracy, legislating
laws to curb cultism to create an investment friendly atmosphere and
inculcating the habit of saving into the public consciousness. There is
also “Bayelsa State Fiscal Responsibility (Amendment) Bill 2012; Bayelsa
State Government and local Government Compulsory Savings Bills 2012
among others. The Dickson Administration has also embarked on a huge
range of policies designed to promote transparency, public participation
and institutional consolidation.
The event also saw the
inauguration of the Central Coordinating Committee in the Bayelsa New
Media Team to create a healthy partnership between the Bayelsa New Media
Team and the government of Bayelsa State. Two computers were presented
to the BNMT. More of these kind gestures will continue in the months
ahead. The import of all these initiatives is that although social media
had been recognized by previous administrations, the commitment and
enthusiasm demonstrated by the Dickson Administration is unprecedented.
Bayelsans are convinced beyond any iota of doubt that Governor Henry
Seriake Dickson understands the efficacy of the Social Media in our bid
to enthrone good governance ala Restoration in Bayelsa State.
Fourthly, on the basis of the experience the BNMT has acquired, we have
been able to open blogs and facebook accounts – which are used to
articulate the policies and programmes of the restoration
administration. As part of efforts to encourage active members of the
BNMT, government has within the limits of available resources, presented
10 mobile phones to some member of the BNMT on August 22, 2012. News
Reporting Jackets have also been provided to members to visit the MDAs
to report updates of government policies and Programmes.
Fifthly,
government has mandated my office to employ some active youths – who
will take social media practice as a job. This is a pointer to the fact
that the Dickson administration is poised to invest in will invest in
ICT infrastructure and train social media practitioners to practice the
art in line with the policy thrust of government.
Social Media
provides critical information on government policies and helps to
uncover corruption. It is a powerful for mobilization, policy
articulation and anti-corruption. On balance, the Dickson administration
has used the instrumentality of Social Media to promote transparency in
the following areas:
Monthly transparency briefing
Open budgeting system
Transparent award of contracts
Accountability of government income and expenditure
Verification of pay vouchers & weeding out of ghost workers
Drastic reduction of wage bill
Reconstitution of the e-Governance & Due Process Bureau
Re-organization of the Central Treasury; Internal Revenue Board; SUBEB
Repositioning the price intelligent unit
Encouraging Council Chairmen to be render account on a monthly basis to the people
Enforcing the policy of Zero tolerance for corruption, among others.
Conclusion
These are commendable steps in the push for transparency and good
governance in Bayelsa State. Verily Governor Henry Seriake Dickson has
laid the building blocks for a Social Media Revolution in Bayelsa State.
Now, we have set up a coordinating framework and evolved the right
strategy, what is left is to equip a huge segment of practitioners with
ICT equipment such as Blackberry smart phones, laptops, iPods, Ipads,
Cameras etc and some training on the use of these gadgets. Such a
worthwhile investment will not only create job opportunities for the
youths but also empower them to analyze government policies and
communicate same to the citizenry. Investment in ICT is also in line
with the human capital development agenda of government. Indeed, we are
at the threshold of cyber-revolution and the Dickson administration is
determined to provided much-needed leadership.***
Rear Admiral Gboribiogha John Jonah was born on 6 March 1954 at Nembe in Nembe Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.
