Nigeria Senate press corps pairs budget oversight workshop with AI training

Nigeria’s Senate Press Corps will hold a capacity-building workshop in Abuja on Monday focused on protecting the national budget from unlawful insertions, while also providing journalists with intensive training in artificial-intelligence tools. The event, at Hearing Room 231 of the National Assembly, is themed “Leveraging Legislative Oversight and Media Collaboration to Safeguard the National Budget from Unlawful Insertions.” Organisers say it will consider practical ways to strengthen the budget process, oversight mechanisms and cooperation between legislative institutions and the media. The workshop is intended to place legislative scrutiny, responsible journalism and public accountability at the centre of efforts to ensure the budget reflects approved priorities and serves Nigerians’ interests. Taiye Odewale, chairman of the Senate Press Corps, said the initiative should improve participants’ understanding of budget processes and encourage transparent, responsible public expenditure. Senator Atiku Bagudu, the minister of budget and economic planning, is due to make a presentation alongside Auwal Rafsanjani of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, BudgIT’s Oluseun Onigbinde and Eagle Times publisher Ikechukwu Chukwunyere. Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin and senior lawmakers including Yemi Adaramodu, Olamilekan Adeola, Sani Musa and Kawu Sumaila are among the expected stakeholders, along with Clerk to the National Assembly Kamoru Ogunlana. The programme also includes an intensive AI-tools session led by London-based instructors from Mass Media TX Limited. The Senate Press Corps says the training will introduce journalists to emerging technologies and their practical applications in contemporary journalism and professional media work. The focus on scrutiny comes amid persistent obstacles to public access to Nigerian budget information. The Conversation reported that the Budget Office of the Federation’s citizen portal is often offline and technically difficult when accessible, while other online data can be incomplete or hard to find. Nigeria scored 19 out of 100 for public participation, 61 for oversight and 31 for transparency in the 2023 Open Budget Survey, placing 92nd among 125 countries. Its transparency score was below the global average of 45 and had fallen from 45 in 2021; the public-participation score had dropped from 26, while oversight was unchanged. The analysis attributed the weaker performance largely to delayed publication of key fiscal reports, including in-year reports and mid-year reviews.