Enugu State Governor explores digital ecosystem for stronger citizen engagement

The Governor of Enugu State, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi has made known his intention to run a government that actively courts citizen participation and community engagement in the day-to-day management of the State with the launch of ‘My Stewardship’, an online platform that not only enables him share information with all the stakeholders in the state but also facilitate two-way communications with citizens and other stakeholders in the state.

My Stewardship, which sits on the domain, www.mystewardship.ng, is a Thought Leadership platform for policy communication, governance, agenda setting and engagement between the Governor and citizens on how best to move the State forward. It provides a space for all those with ideas and useful suggestions on how to best manage the resources of the State for the good of all to share their what they have and by that get to directly influence the policies, activities and direction of government.

Speaking on the development, the Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi said the digital ecosystem has become a veritable tool for governance and expressed his readiness to explore its full benefits for citizen participation in government affairs, saying it will also make for a more responsive leadership by his administration.

“We are in the age of ideas and the world of Internet has provided a critical enabler for citizens to express themselves freely and willingly on issues of state resource management and value allocation. As a government, it has increasingly become clear to us that we need to engage the people much more robustly to ensure we filter the best of ideas, views and opinions if we are want to be remembered by history for all the right reasons. That is why I have decided to launch this platform.”

Continuing, he said his government “wants to reach out more often to the people, enabling them to understand better how the state is managed and also create a pipeline of information exchange that will enrich policy issues and create fertile grounds for people oriented programmes through wider citizen participation.”

He admitted that his government has learnt so much from information gleaned from the internet, especially the Social Media and promised to leverage the new platform to even deepen conversations with citizens and stakeholders.

Governor Ugwuanyi said it gives him fulfillment seeing the robust discussions and expressions of views by citizens of the state on the social media and said time has come for harness these ideas and the people behind them into a community for ease of harvest and articulation into State policy.

“The past few months have been very challenging for us as a government. The country is going through a disturbing economic recession. We have also found ourselves confronting security challenges of very strange dimensions. But I must admit that while a number of commentaries on the issues, especially as it affects security, bothered on lack of proper understanding of the workings and processes of government, there have been inflows of suggestions and ideas that we have been able to leverage in revamping and strengthening the security structure of the entire Enugu State. But we are convinced that with this platform, citizens and stakeholders will feel a lot more involved and by that, make more healthy contributions that will no doubt energize governance and help deliver more values to the people of the State,” Governor Ugwuanyi stated.

He said with the platform, the people will be a lot more convinced of his determination to run an open government that is also receptive to revolutionary ideas capable of positively impacting the state economically, politically and socio-culturally.