Stakeholders Urge Technology-enabled Public Hearings To Boost Citizens’ Participation

Stakeholders have called for the removal of institutional barriers limiting citizens’ participation in Nigeria’s legislative process. They urged lawmakers to deploy technology to rebuild public trust and make public hearings more inclusive.

The executive director of Tunani Initiative, Mairo Ibrahim, at a stakeholders’ validation session on “Expanding Legislative Participation Through Technology-enabled Public Hearings in Nigeria,” held in Abuja, said the initiative was developing a policy brief that would provide practical recommendations for making legislative processes more accessible to citizens.

The session examined how artificial intelligence (AI) and other digital technologies could be used to expand citizens’ participation in public hearings and enable Nigerians to contribute meaningfully to bills before they become law.

“We want to have a platform where you can contribute your own voice to whatever bill is being considered as law. So, we don’t want laws to be passed again without the active inputs of Nigerians.

“And not just inputs for the sake of it, but in a way where the public is able to efficiently deliberate and feed into the legislative process.

“So, that’s exactly what we’re trying to imagine here. We’re developing a policy brief to that regard. And we hope that when this policy brief is done, our legislature at all levels can consider the recommendations that we’re trying to create today,” she said.

Addressing concerns over internet access, Ibrahim said the proposed system would cater for Nigerians who lack smartphones or reliable internet connectivity.

She said the research had considered the use of radio, USSD and other low-cost technologies to enable citizens to participate in public hearings.

“In our research, we did take consideration that some places do not have internet coverage. And that’s why we imagined a public hearing where public hearings are even broadcasted on radio.

“If you heard Alassane’s presentation, he spoke about being able to add to the discussions through USSD codes. At least you can do USSD code with your torchlight phone.

“So imagine listening to public hearing on the radio and being able to contribute with your dialling phone.”

Ibrahim said the policy was still in draft form and would be strengthened through contributions from stakeholders.

“If we’re able to find entry points in either state or federal legislature, we can. If we’re able to find entry points then we believe that we can expand legislative practices to accommodate everybody, whether you have the internet or you don’t have the internet.”

She said the organisation would present its recommendations to relevant National Assembly institutions, including the Committee on Rules and Business, the National Assembly Trust Fund and the Clerk of the House of Representatives.

Research Director of Tunani Initiative, Alhassan Pereira-Ibrahim, said the research examined Nigeria’s legislative framework and international models from Taiwan and Brazil to determine how technology could make public participation more accessible.

He said the research involved interviews with legislators, civil society organisations and civic technology practitioners.

According to him, the findings revealed significant institutional barriers, a trust deficit between citizens and lawmakers, and limited public understanding of the legislative process.

“I think one of the things that became very, very clear is there’s a lot of institutional barriers to participation in Nigeria. I think there’s the problem of trust between citizens and between lawmakers.

“I think there’s an issue of public understanding of how bills even come to be, what the public hearing process is like.”

Pereira-Ibrahim said lessons from Taiwan’s model and Brazil’s use of crowdsourcing showed that public participation could be expanded without necessarily deploying expensive technology.

“I think some of what we learned is that there doesn’t have to be a high cost to entry. We can use tools that just enable, whether it’s committees in the National Assembly, whether it’s looking at state level, to begin to open up this process to the public.”

He stressed that meaningful citizen participation was necessary for a functioning democracy.

“If we want to remain a democratic state, we have to have public participation in the lawmaking process in the country.

“Otherwise, you just wake up and you just find out as the public that there have been new laws put in place. And you don’t know how this law came about.”

He cited the change of Nigeria’s National Anthem as an example of the need for broader consultation, arguing that the public hearing period was too short for sustained public deliberation.

“The public hearing was too short for any sustained public deliberation. So we’re looking at the digital to bridge that gap.”

Pereira-Ibrahim urged the government to make use of existing technologies to facilitate public participation, arguing that digital engagement does not necessarily require complex infrastructure.

“I want to dissuade us from the idea that it’s overly complex.”

He cited Brazil’s experience in developing its Internet Bill of Rights, where citizens were able to submit comments through online platforms.

“These are things that are already free and available technologies. You can use free and available technologies to enable public participation if the will is there.”

He said the government must create channels that allow citizens to contribute to laws that affect them.

“If you want to maintain a functional state, you cannot exclude the public from the process of lawmaking.”

The draft policy paper proposes a “Decentralised Input, Centralised Synthesis” model that would allow citizens to participate through channels including WhatsApp, USSD, SMS, toll-free telephone lines, local radio and community town halls.

The model would enable citizens to submit views through platforms suited to their level of digital access, while technology would help lawmakers organise, translate and synthesise the submissions.

The initiative also recommended that public hearings be broadcast through television, radio and digital platforms, with AI-assisted translation and interpretation introduced to improve accessibility.

The policy proposes that AI-generated analysis should remain subject to human review and should not independently determine the credibility or relevance of citizens’ submissions.

Secretary general of the Community of Democracies, Dr Mantas Adomenas, who delivered the opening remarks, stressed the importance of youth participation in democratic governance.

He said young people were often at the forefront of democratic movements but could become disillusioned when democratic institutions appeared complicated, slow and disconnected from their realities.

Adomenas identified a global crisis of democratic institutions, leadership and narrative, arguing that democracy must be presented to young people as a system capable of shaping their future.

“We need to rejuvenate the narrative of democracy. We need to find words which show that it is actually the only form of governance which enables each generation to recreate the society they live in according to their own needs, according to their own aspirations and desires.”

He said democracy offered young people the opportunity to shape the societies in which they live.

“We need young people involvement not for some sort of technocratic and statistical reason, but because this is the only way that by engaging in this intergenerational project, protecting democracy, protecting liberty, we can hope to hand it over to the next generation.”

Adomenas urged participants to develop practical solutions capable of making youth participation in democratic governance a reality.

Founder of the Youth Democracy Network (YDN), Daryna Onyshko, expressed support for the initiative, saying meaningful youth participation was essential to democratic governance.

She said YDN, established in 2024, is a global network of young leaders aged 18 to 32, comprising policymakers, civic activists, journalists and social entrepreneurs from more than 80 countries.

According to her, the network reaches more than 3,000 young people committed to democratic values and human rights.

“We believe that meaningful youth participation is really ensuring that young people have the opportunities, skills, networks, and also confidence to shape decisions that affect their communities.”

Onyshko said Africa had become one of YDN’s fastest-growing cohorts and noted that the organisation supported initiatives such as Tunani’s through its mini-grants programme.

The stakeholder validation session is expected to contribute to the finalisation of the policy brief, after which the Tunani Initiative plans to present its recommendations to relevant National Assembly institutions and other stakeholders.