CITAD Trains 73 Youth To Use Social Media To Fight Corruption

By Idris Ayinde

The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), has trained 73 youths on using social media to demand for accountability from government officials in Bauchi state.

Mr Ali Sabo, Accountability Project Officer, Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) stated this in Bauchi on Thursday during the commencement of a two-day training session.

He said that the essence of the training was to ensure that these young people were equipped with proper and right social media knowledge to demand for accountability and fight corruption constructively and in a civil manner.

According to him, the trainees aged 18 to 35 years would be taught on how to constructively use the social media to hold the government officials accountable by asking questions about campaign promises and also following up on the issue of constituency projects.

“The project started when we saw that there were chunks of young people who are on social media and many of these people are using social media for different purposes.

“Some are using it for chatting and some are using it for bad behavior. So, on our part, thought there is a need for us to engage those young people in order to train them on using social media to demand accountability.

“That is why we called the training ‘Social Media for Accountability’. Accountability in the sense that there are a lot of promises government officials especially, the representatives and politicians are making while campaigning.

“And when the elections come and go, everyone will just go and forget about the promises.

“So, we thought it would be good to have young people to be following and also holding these people accountable by asking constructive questions about these campaign promises and also following up on the issue of constituency projects,” he said.

The Accountability Officer, who explained that each House member has his own constituency projects, said that most times, the money for the projects is being diverted and not utilised in a proper way, hence the need for the training.

He said that the organization aimed to train nothing less than 3,000 young people on this course in 2024 in Bauchi state.

One of the participants who spoke on behalf of others, Ismail Dauda, lauded the organization for coming up with such eye opening and educative training.

He promised to make effective use of the training and to also step it down to young people around him in his community.

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