When we started building Citizens Watch, the idea was to empower citizens with the tools to track government promises and hold leaders accountable. It felt like a practical way to strengthen democracy by making information visible and advancing accountability.
However, implementation revealed a structural challenge that no amount of platform improvement could solve. Specifically, we realised that without reliable, comparable, and regularly updated digital data about what governments are actually doing, even the most sophisticated civic tech tool will always be constrained by the poverty of the information ecosystem it operates within.
This challenge is not unique to Citizens Watch because it is the fundamental constraint facing the entire civic technology and accountability sector in Nigeria.
Across different states, government data is inconsistent, scattered, or completely unavailable. Some states maintain active, regularly updated websites. Others have platforms that have not been updated in years. In many cases, the only source of information is the Governor’s social media page, which is often focused more on political messaging than on actual governance.
As a team, working through this, something became undeniable. We observed that it is unviable to hold the government accountable for what cannot be seen or measured. That realisation changed how we approached public accountability and governance reform. It revealed that Nigeria’s accountability deficit extends beyond a crisis of leadership to a crisis of information. In essence, one feeds the other.
This is what led us to the Nigeria Digital Governance Index (NDGI) – a system to evaluate how state governments use digital platforms to communicate, deliver services, and engage citizens. The NDGI is built on a structurally important insight- how a government uses digital platforms reveals how transparent it is, how well it serves citizens, and how easily people can hold it accountable.
Before joining Civic Hive, the idea made sense to us, and the fellowship has helped us sharpen it into something far more intentional. One of the biggest shifts was understanding that this is a system that needs to be credible, simple, and usable. There was a moment during one of the sessions when a facilitator said, “Don’t build for the people, build with them.” That idea has stayed with us.
These experiences have challenged how we think about our work. We have better clarity that this goes beyond designing tools or frameworks that make sense to us. We need to focus on creating something that people can engage with, question, and use in their everyday lives. It means listening more, simplifying more, and constantly asking whether what we are building is truly accessible to the people it is meant to serve.
Another part of the fellowship that stood out for us is the community. Being surrounded by civic innovators building different solutions across West Africa reminds us that we are not alone in trying to make governance work for the people. Even though our approaches differ, the underlying problems are often the same. For instance, we all encounter limited access to reliable data, weak accountability systems, and low levels of citizen engagement.
This experience has pushed us to think bigger. We are thinking about how to build systems that can influence governance at scale. This has also reinforced the essence of clarity, which will serve us for a long time.
Looking ahead, we are excited about what comes next. The immediate goal is to launch the inaugural Sub-National Digital Governance Index. But our vision goes beyond the ranking. The NDGI is a platform for research, policy, and action that produces insights and supports their implementation. Beyond publishing recommendations, we aim to work alongside governments as development partners, helping to improve digital governance in practice.
If there’s one thing this journey has reinforced for us, it is that accountability requires clarity of purpose and firm resolve from those who seek to pursue it. And we are grateful to Civic Hive for their ongoing support in refining an initiative that will improve governance and accountability at all levels.
Ayomide Alao is the Founder of Reformers of Africa, the civic-tech organisation behind Citizens Watch and the Nigeria Digital Governance Index (NDGI). He can be reached at ayomide@reformersofafrica.org
