By Obas Esiedesa, Abuja 

Stakeholders in the extractive accountability space, Tuesday, launched a platform that has the capacity to link politically exposed persons to oil and gas assets across the country. 

Named ‘Joining the Dots’, the online based tool crossmatches the data on Beneficial Ownership, BO, and politically exposed persons against oil and gas, and mining licences in order to detect the existence of conflict of interest.

The tool was developed jointly by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, Directorio Legislativo, BudgIT Foundation and Transparency in Totality.

Speaking at the launch in Abuja, the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji said the tool will help to identify red flags in the licences award processes in Nigeria’s oil, gas and mining sectors. 

“In the past one year, NEITI has provided the technical support to this project, backing it up with the relevant data, information and the agency’s over a decade experience in BOR.

“What we are launching today is the result of that year long behind the scenes work, linking data on PEPs to Nigeria’s BO registers with the CAC and NEITI and the areas of conflicts of interests detected and the companies involved in Nigeria’s extractive industries”, he explained.

Also speaking, Mr Juan Krahl of Directorio Legislativo explained that assessment of data requires adaptability and creativity as Joining the Dots differs in countries.
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