The Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative says Nigeria is among 15 Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative implementing countries that will be validated this year.
NEITI’s Executive Secretary, Waziri Adio, said this when he featured at the News Agency of Nigeria Forum in Abuja.
Adio stated that validation is a quality assurance mechanism put in place to keep EITI-implementing countries on track.
He said: “As part of our international obligations, we go through a process called validation.
“All EITI implementing countries, when they have achieved the compliance status, are validated.
“It is a quality assurance mechanism to make sure that they stay on track; Nigeria is one of the 15 EITI implementing countries due for validation this year.
“The validation process has commenced and let me also say this: it is not NEITI that is being validated, but it is Nigeria that is being validated.
“Nigeria, in 2003, voluntarily signed up to this commitment.
“So what they want to look at is how Nigeria is faithfully implementing this commitment.”
Adio said a mission would be in Nigeria soon on a 10-day visit to ascertain the country’s commitment to implementing the initiative.
He said: “They will talk to us; they will talk to all the stakeholders involved in extractive industry transparency issues in the country.
“These will include the civil society, the companies and government agencies.
“So we want to also use this opportunity to flag that and we are very convinced that Nigeria will come up tops because we have always been pushing the boundaries.
“We have always been one of the leading EITI implementing countries in the world but we need people to be aware that this is going on.”
The executive secretary said stakeholders in the industry had already been informed about the visit, stressing the need for Nigerians accord the team their maximum support.
He solicited NAN’s support to disseminate information on the activities of the agency in the interest of the country.
NAN.