BudgIT’s service delivery platform, Tracka, has celebrated its 10th anniversary with games, funfair, and prize and award presentations.

The entertainment event, the Active Citizens Festival, was themed “Building People, Moulding Nations” and was held on Saturday at the Landmark Event Centre, Oniru, Lagos state.

The event witnessed the presentation of the Enough Is Enough (EIE) Award to selected entrepreneurs whose success in their fields of endeavour has impacted many and the country at large.

The recipients include Hauwa Ojeifo, Kelechukwu Nwachukwu, Bukola Bolarinwa, Bright Jaja, Victor Ekueme, Oladiwura Oladepo, Funke Adeoye, Michael Sowunmi, and Adepeju Jaiyeola.

Also, five secondary school students who came tops in the Tracka at ten national essay competitions were handed certificates: the second runner-up, Ariel Olaniyan, received a cash prize of N50,000; the first runner-up, Ogunlana Klistivitonyon got N100,000 and the winner, Oyinyechi Udensi, was awarded N200,000.

Speakers at the event called for more interest and involvement of youths in politics to keep the government on their toes in their constitutional duties, thereby reducing corruption.

The EIE executive director, Yemi Adamolekun, lamented the unavailability of more social movements in the country and called on Nigerians to decide they deserve better.

“There’s nothing in Nigeria’s structure perse that teaches us how democracy works. We’re just expected to know that we’re in a democracy,” said Ms Adamolekun.

“My point of view is that it’s very intentional because the less that you know about your rights, the less that you know about who you are as a citizen, the easier it is for you to be manipulated and for governance not to work for you,” Ms Adamolekun added.

On her part, the executive director and chief executive officer, Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, Motunrayo Alaka, called for good people to be in places of authority and for protests to be normalised.

Mrs Alaka said, “If we don’t get good people in places of authority, nothing will change; Nigeria is going to be the same. By good people, we dont mean saints or angels. We mean human beings, fallible, that have challenges, things they are going through, have done their work so much that you know that you can trust the work into this person’s hands. 

“We need to normalise protests; we need to normalise asking questions; that’s what makes democracy work.”

According to BudgIT, Tracka, which tracks the implementation of government projects, has, in the last decade, facilitated the completion of over 11,800 projects worth N5.3 trillion in the education, health, and infrastructural sectors in over 3,500 communities, currently serving over 10 million Nigerians.