Building Africa's Most Influential Accountability Movement
From a single campaign in Nigeria to a continent-wide movement across 36 states and 12 African countries in six years.
Connected Development
& FollowTheMoney
Busayo joined Connected Development (CODE) in 2016 and rose quickly to a Director-level leadership position, where he would spend six transformative years scaling one of Africa's most influential governance accountability initiatives.
CODE works to empower marginalised communities across Africa by improving access to public information, amplifying community voices, and using digital tools to strengthen citizen oversight of government.
At the heart of CODE's work was FollowTheMoney, a citizen-led social accountability movement committed to developing civic education programmes that empower communities to take ownership of government projects and public spending.
Under Busayo's strategic leadership, FollowTheMoney grew into the fastest-growing social accountability movement in Africa. His responsibilities included strategic direction for civic engagement campaigns across Nigeria and Africa, digital product strategy and platform development for civic accountability tools, expansion of citizen monitoring networks to new regions and countries, and coordinating partnerships with government agencies, civil society, media, and international donors.
The iFollowTheMoney Platform
A central pillar of Busayo's work was developing and scaling iFollowTheMoney, a civic technology platform that gave ordinary citizens access to financial and procurement data and provided them with the tools to monitor government spending in their communities. At its peak, the platform had over 10,000 active users monitoring approximately $20 million worth of government procurements across all 36 states in Nigeria and 12 other African countries, a first-of-its-kind achievement for any African civic technology NGO. The platform grew by 800% within a two-year period.
- —Track public procurement and government expenditure across all 36 Nigerian states
- —Report abandoned and incomplete public projects with photographic evidence
- —Share community evidence of governance failures in accessible civic forums
- —Discuss government accountability and amplify underserved community voices
- —Monitor vaccine allocation and healthcare resource distribution in real time
300+ Campaigns, Real Change
Busayo personally oversaw more than 300 social accountability campaigns focused on transparency and public service delivery, spanning health, infrastructure, education, and water and sanitation.
The collective impact reshaped how citizens, institutions, and governments in Nigeria and across Africa engaged with questions of accountability and public resource management.
Government Investigations
Parliamentary probes triggered by citizen-led monitoring on the platform.
Policy Reforms
Community-documented failures translated directly into policy changes at state and federal level.
Project Completion
Abandoned public projects restarted following sustained campaign pressure from communities.
Healthcare Improvements
Improved primary healthcare delivery in underserved communities where campaigns exposed gaps.
"The platform sparked government investigations and probes, policy reforms, and deepened citizens' interest in governance. Citizens were educated to discuss accountability issues and amplify incomplete government projects in their communities."
Busayo O. Morakinyo(BOM)
COVID-19 Transparency Initiative (2020 to 2021)
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Busayo led the deployment of the iFollowTheMoney platform to monitor the distribution of vaccines and healthcare resources across all states in Nigeria. This was one of the most critical applications of civic technology in Nigeria during a national emergency, demonstrating the platform's adaptability and its importance as a public accountability infrastructure.
- —Tracked vaccine allocation transparency across all 36 Nigerian states in real time
- —Provided real-time public oversight of emergency health funding and procurement
- —Strengthened accountability within primary healthcare supply chains during the crisis
- —Demonstrated the adaptability of civic technology to emergency public health contexts
A Continent-Wide Movement
By the end of his tenure at Connected Development, the FollowTheMoney movement had reached communities in all 36 Nigerian states and expanded its presence across 12 additional African countries. It was cited internationally as a model for civic technology-enabled democratic accountability, and earned recognition from the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the World Summit Awards.