Olusegun Elemo

Olusegun is addressing Nigeria’s systemic issues with public finance auditing by fostering citizen engagement, advocating for reforms in public finance auditing, and enhancing the capacity of auditing bodies to ensure that public resources are managed transparently and effectively.

Olusegun is redefining how citizens hold governments accountable for public spending by making government spending audit participatory, timely, and transparent. His innovation lies in his development of the first Nigerian subnational audit efficacy index—a tool that tracks and compares how state governments across Nigeria budget, spend, and deliver on their promises. This index, grounded in internationally endorsed auditing standards, gives citizens, civil society, media, and oversight institutions the power to evaluate government spending in real time.

Olusegun’s model transforms the traditional audit process from a closed, delayed bureaucratic routine into an open, citizen-facing, and results-based system. He introduced a 270-day audit reporting cycle—ensuring that within nine months of the government’s budget execution, audited results are published and accessible to the public. This model empowers civil society actors to intervene with data-backed advocacy where corruption and mismanagement are discovered.

Olusegun’s innovative system is not just a framework for Nigeria, as it has been endorsed by the development arm of the International Organization for Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) – the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI), headquartered in Norway, as an innovative framework that fosters collaboration between Supreme Audit Institutions and citizen-sector organizations. Backed by IDI, Olusegun’s index model has been recognized by the Offices of the Auditors-General of Zambia and Malawi, respectively as an instrument that fosters collaboration between audit institutions and civil society organizations, and they have invited him to deploy the model in their countries to enhance citizens participatory audit. He has collaborated with the Mexican Office of the Auditor-General and IDI to develop a framework for collaboration between audit institutions and civil society organizations globally.

In Nigeria, the public finance auditing system has long struggled with inefficiency and a lack of transparency, contributing to widespread corruption and the mismanagement of public resources. This problem is rooted in a complex political landscape shaped by historical, cultural, and political factors that continue to hinder reform efforts. Since the transition to civilian rule in 1999, various sectors have undergone reform, yet public auditing has remained largely overlooked. As a result, public funds are often poorly monitored, eroding public trust in government institutions and weakening democratic accountability.

At the heart of the problem is the obsolete 1956 Audit Ordinance Act, still in effect today. This is ill-suited to Nigeria’s present-day realities. This lacks the tools and structures needed for effective financial oversight and fails to support citizen participation in the auditing process. The law does not compel the timely submission of financial statements by the Accountant General, nor does it establish clear deadlines for legislative committees to review audit reports. This absence of procedural clarity leads to delays, inefficiencies, and an overall breakdown in the audit value chain.

Compounding the legal and procedural gaps is the near-total exclusion of citizens from the auditing process. Public engagement remains minimal due to limited awareness, poor access to audit data, and a longstanding absence of transparency. Without information, citizens are unable to understand how public funds are being spent, much less hold officials to account. This disconnect between government action and public expectation has created a fertile ground for corruption.

Corruption, deeply embedded in Nigeria’s public sector, thrives in the vacuum left by weak accountability systems. Public finance auditing is no exception. The absence of deterrent mechanisms has emboldened corrupt officials to divert funds with impunity. Institutional inefficiencies—including prolonged audit cycles and poor inter-agency coordination—only intensify the problem. The result is a staggering waste of public resources and continued failure in service delivery, despite growing citizen demands for change.

Olusegun started the Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative (PLSI) in 2016 by challenging the government’s failure to release past audit reports. He successfully took the Office of the Auditor-General to court, winning a landmark ruling that forced the publication of the audits dating back to 1999 when the current democratic dispensation of Nigeria commenced.

Faced with continued resistance from the Office of the Auditor-General at the federal level, Olusegun strategically shifted his focus to the state level. Around the same time, the federal government secured a $1.5 billion World Bank loan, which it requested be disbursed to the 36 states as grants. Olusegun seized this opportunity by partnering with the World Bank to require that states implement fiscal transparency reforms as a condition for accessing the funds. Through this leverage, he embarked on a nation-wide spread that successfully supported all 36 states in passing new audit laws aligned with his model. His new framework introduced a 270-day mandatory audit reporting timeline; public release of both audit results; and a standardized index to measure and compare state-level audit performance.

In a strategic move to fully operationalize his model, Olusegun deployed a grassroots infrastructure of 36 trained volunteer monitors, one in each state, to verify and analyze fiscal documents, feeding data into the Subnational Audit Efficacy Index which has now become a ranking tool to measure Nigerian states on transparency and audit efficacy. The subnational audit efficacy index has become a major document that states in Nigeria look forward to annually to see where they rank in spending audit in comparison to other states. To further expand his influence, Olusegun and his team organize annual audit efficacy open events to convene state governments, and public stakeholders as a means of making the audit findings public.

Olusegun’s innovative model emphasizes robust community involvement aimed at enhancing public accountability and service delivery. Through the Value-for-Money platform, community members are given agency to report abandoned projects within their locality. Once these reports are verified, Olusegun escalates the report to the relevant anti-corruption agency for the relevant action. The report, which details the amount of money allocated for the project as well as the contractor responsible for the project, is not taken offline until either the contractor completes the work or makes a refund of the contracted sum back to the relevant government agency. By doing this, Olusegun is empowering citizens to become active participants in governance. In addition to this, he organizes nationwide workshops and public forums for the dissemination of simplified infographics of audit reports that highlight discrepancies in public spending. This direct contact is complemented by systemic changes as communities begin to demand better services and transparency.

To expand his network, Olusegun spearheaded the creation of the Civil Society Coalition on Audit in Nigeria (CSCAN) in 2019 – a nationwide network of auditors, and civil society organizations. Through CSCAN, Olusegun has mobilized a 120-member strong movement of strategic actors to draft and advocate for a modern Audit Law. The proposed legislation, patterned after the state audit laws already in use, sets clear guidelines that require the Office of the Auditor-General to publish annual audit reports and make them accessible to the public. However, due to the change of successive governments at the federal level, the bill is currently passing through the final stages of the legislative process.

In addition to this, his subnational audit efficacy index and collaborative framework have been formally endorsed and recognized by the development office of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), as a pioneering approach to bridging the gap between Supreme Audit Institutions and civil society, strengthening accountability and transparency. Through this international validation, Olusegun has successfully replicated and deployed his model to shape Citizens Participatory Audit (CPA) in Malawi, and Zambia respectively, at the direct invitations of the Offices of the Auditors-General in both countries. In each case, Olusegun customized the tool to align with country-specific legal and institutional frameworks, while maintaining its core emphasis on transparency, citizen participation, and timely audit reporting. In Mexico, Olusegun partnered with the national Auditor-General’s office and INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) to co-develop a global policy framework that formalizes collaboration between audit institutions and civil society. This framework is now being explored as a model for other countries seeking to institutionalize citizen engagement in public audit systems.

Growing up in Nigeria as a middle child in a family of three siblings, Olusegun faced significant challenges from an early age, particularly after his father lost his job, which plunged the family into financial hardship. As the second of three brothers, Olusegun took on substantial responsibilities, often stepping in to help his family make ends meet by selling paper scripts and ice blocks. As a secondary school student, he wrote a letter to his state’s commissioner for education requesting a partnership to run a statewide leadership workshop series for secondary school students in the state. Upon honoring a meeting with the commissioner, she could not believe that such a young boy could conceive such an idea and make attempts to actualize it. Although the idea didn’t pull through due to the lack of interest from the civil servants tasked by the commissioner to work with him, these formative experiences instilled in him a strong sense of responsibility and a keen awareness of the socio-economic challenges faced by many.

Due to financial constraints, Olusegun struggled with making the minimum cut-off point to enter university after several tries. However, he persevered and eventually gained admission to university through a remedial program. While on campus, he juggled his studies with a phone charging business where fellow students paid a small fee to charge their phones while on campus. Olusegun's personal experiences with poverty and educational barriers fueled his passion for addressing systemic issues within society. He recognized that the struggles he faced were not unique to his family but were part of a broader societal problem affecting many Nigerians. His “AHA” moment came during a conversation with a friend where he was articulating his frustrations with the systemic failures in Nigeria caused by a lack of transparency and accountability in public spending. The friend challenged him to do something about the problem since he felt so strongly about it. That was the spark that lit the fire.

Olusegun’s leadership is characterized by persistence and adaptability. In the early days of his work, when he was denied information from the Office of the Auditor-General, he went to court to secure an order compelling the release of the information to the public domain. Since founding PLSI in 2016, he has grown from a few initial supporters to 15 staff members, 5 technical consultants, 36 volunteer state representatives, and a 120-member strong Civil Society Coalition on Audit in Nigeria (CSCAN).