TAF PUBLISHING

This study investigates the contents of official parliamentary websites in the 36 State Houses of Assembly of Nigeria to determine how they facilitate effective engagement between citizens and their elected representatives. Parliaments represent the interests of citizens and therefore remain critical to democracy and good governance. There- fore, for effective citizens’ engagement, ensuring the online presence, and; enhancing the transparency of internal processes, parliaments leverage information and communication technology globally. The methodology includes a manual test based on categories and critical sub-factors in line with Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Guidelines. Desk research was also used to determine technical challenges for the implementation of e-parliament. The findings reveal that 36% of the state assemblies have official websites. Five are fully functional, and just five state legislatures effectively utilize interactivity tools to re-engage the citizens. Results show that 58% of the state legislatures use social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter. The authors concluded that in enhancing civic participation, state legislatures need to provide a relatively open, more responsive, accessible, and interactive website while extending medial social tools.