The Office of Transformation, Creativity and Innovation (OTCI), today, organised a virtual stakeholders’ engagement with the Ministry of Information and Strategy to brainstorm on how to increase public awareness about the State Government’s Citizensgate platforms.
The Director-General, OTCI, Mr. Toba Otusanya, stated that the Office has organised training programmes for citizensgate resolvers and sensitised several internal and external stakeholders to create more awareness for the initiative, adding that the meeting became necessary, especially during this lockdown period, to ensure that people’s needs are still met by the government while visits to the Secretariat, Alausa, are restricted.
According to Otusanya, having sensitised key internal stakeholders, such as the body of Permanent Secretaries and Directors, there is an urgent need to focus on external stakeholders in order to encourage more patronage of the platforms, such that issues would be resolved through the Citizensgate online portal, without individuals visiting government establishments responsible for the service.
While emphasising the need to be fully equipped for the huge feedback that would accompany the planned campaign by ensuring that the resolvers at various MDAs have working tools and prepare their minds for future expectations, the DG added that the need for each head of Agency to access the portal and monitor what is going on in their various MDAs cannot be over-emphasised.
He expressed gratitude to the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Strategy, Mr. Olusina Thorpe for his support, highlighting the need to encourage the general public to utilise all the opportunities available to communicate with the government through the portal.
On his part, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Strategy, Mr. Olusina Thorpe commended the efforts made so far by the OTCI and promised to support the Office through the Television, Radio and Social Media platforms managed by the Ministry.
He specifically commended the Director-General and his team for organising the virtual meeting and promised to go back to the drawing board with his team and come up with strategies that would be tracked over a specified period of time to adequately ascertain effectiveness.
Recall that the Citizensgate website and app was launched in 2017 by the State Government as part of efforts to encourage deeper interaction between the government and the general public.
The website can be accessed at: citizensgate.lagosstate.gov.ng and the free download (lagosstatecitizensgate) is available on Google Play Store, while citizens without internet access can call the Command Centre on 767 to make their complaints.
RI/TMS/OS
