CSO unveils portal for citizens to ‘engage directly with public officials’

Raising New Voices (RNV), a non-profit organisation, has unveiled a portal for citizens to engage with government officials.

Speaking with TheCable on Friday at an event to mark the unvieling of the portal, Victor Terhemba, RVN’s acting executive director, said the portal will display the contacts of elected public officals.

Terhemba said the portal for civic engagement is govengage.ng, adding that it contains the contact list of the lawmakers in the national assembly.

He added that after the 2023 elections, contacts of newly elected public officials will be updated on the portal.

“Gov Engage is a web based application that will empower the citizens to engage directly with public officials,” Terhemba said.

“Gov Engage also gives organisations running advocacy campaigns to create campaigns on the portal, invite citizens on any issue that is of public interest, and then invite the citizens to participate.

“And when the citizens come to participate, they engage directly with the target audience. So, if as an organisation, you come to the portal and you create a campaign, for example, a human rights issue, and you select a target that is targeting a particular ministry, it means that the citizens will be able to engage directly with the ministers through phone calls, emails, or text messages.

“For now, we don’t have the entire contact of governors, but we have the entire contact of the national assembly members. We are also building on the contacts of ministers and state houses of assembly.

“You know we are actually going into elections at the moment and once it’s done, we might have new elected public officials. Those ones, their information too will be included.”