The Oracle: CSOs and the Media in Promoting Democracy and Good Governance in Nigeria (Pt. 4)

By Mike Ozekhome

Introduction

In the last part of this intervention, we dealt with the following sub-topics: Good governance differs from country to country; Major good governance indicators and Good governance needs strong followership (having commenced same). In this part, we shall further explore the following themes: Good governance needs strong followership; Some CSOs in Nigeria; Typologies of Nigerian CSOs; Questions raised by CSOs; Proliferation and Roles of CSOs; NGOs and the role of CSOs. Please read on.

Good Governance Needs Strong Followership
(Civil Society Organizations) (continues)

Members of the political community should see good governance as a collective effort where they must play their part. Citizens can set up Non-governmental organizations to address or assist government in tackling some perceived problems of the polity. Civil societies like religious organizations, organized labour, academic unions, student organizations, should be strengthened and help in defending the autonomy of private interest. The civil society and Non-governmental organizations, community based organizations, market associations, professional associations should be able to collaborate and mobilize the citizens to stand against democratic abuses, obnoxious laws and policies; roguery in position of power, election rigging etc. The end will be massive withdrawal of support in the form of mass action, strikes, demonstration etc until government purges itself of toga of enslavement and maltreatment of the people.

In the same vein, it follows that any government that cannot command followership of its citizen is already heading to the precipice. If it degenerate to level of exceeding its powers, and becomes purposeless and infringes on natural rights of the people, it should be dissolved because the essence of instating governance has been defeated. Choosing credible leaders is the greatest duty followers must perform. It is incumbent on them to elect and enthrone their leader. They should not tolerate poor leadership. They should asses their leaders based on veritable values of honesty, integrity, accountability, probity etc. The people should not mortgage their conscience by taking bribe from the leader before they elect them. They must note that any leader who wants to buy the people is evil and will eventually shortchange them. The people should elicit nothing short of sound accountable leadership”. Good governance posits also that there must be absence of corruption so as to preserve the integrity of democracy. The absence of bribery, graft and corrupt in general spurs growth, development and foreign investment.

SOME CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS IN NIGERIA

Acronyms and Abbreviations
ASUU – Academic Staff Union of Universities
CAN – Christian Association of Nigeria
CBO – Community based Organization
CLO – Civil Liberties Organization
CSO – Civil Society Organization
DG – Democracy and Governance
CEDPA – Centre for Development and Population Activities
ENABLE – Creating an Enabling Environment for Women’s Effective Participation.
FOIACT – Freedom of Information Act
FOMWAN – Federation of Muslim Woman’s Association of Nigeria
ILO – International Labour Organization
INEC – Independent National Electoral Commission
LAW GROUP – International Human Rights Law Group
MAN – Manufactures Association of Nigeria
NACCIMA – National Association of Chambers of Commerce,
Industry Mines and Agriculture.
NCWS – National Council of Women’s Societies
NLC – Nigerian Labour Congress
NGO – Non-Government Organization
NSCIA – Nigerian Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs
PACE – Partnership for Advocacy and Civil Empowerment
PROSPECT – Promoting Stakeholder Participation in Economic Transition
TMG – Transition Monitoring Group
UDD – Universal Defenders of Democracy

TYPOLOGIES OF NIGERIAN CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS

1. Professional Associations
2. Labour and Trade Unions
3. Philanthropic Organizations
4. Religious or Faith-based Organizations
5. Development NGOs
• Service Delivery Organizations
• Research, Resource/Support Centres
6. Foundations
7. Ethnic Militias/Vanguards
8. Networks:
• Umbrellas
• Issue-driven Networks Health, Education
• Regional Networks
• Woman’s Networks
9. Private Sector
10. Community-Based Organizations (CBOs)
• Community Development Associations (CDAs)
• Town Unions
• Religious Association
• Neighborhood Associations and Vigilance Groups
• Social Clubs and Age Grade Associations
• Trade Guilds
• Market Women Associations
• Youth Organizations

QUESTIONS RAISED BY CSOs

Support for civil society’s role in building democracy in Nigeria thus raises three
(3) Fundamental questions:
1. How can civil society’s meta-role in restoring the interest of the public on the priority agenda of the public on the priority agenda of the political elite be strengthened?

2. How can the centrifugal forces among civil society groups be best managed so that coalitions advocating priority public issues can be maintained?
3. How does the structural division within civil society between interest based organizations and the NGOs impact USAID strategy for assisting civil society’s role in building democracy in Nigeria.

PROLIFERATION AND ROLES OF CSOs IN NIGERIA

After decades of struggling with military rule, Nigerian Civil Society has emerged as a vibrant, battle-hardened force for change in the Nation’s young democracy. Yet civil society in Nigeria developed in relations to the beleaguered state. Thus the diversity and many complexities that characterize Nigerian politics are reflected in its dynamic civil society, including the contradictions that result in seeking to build a democracy out of a policy that is not a single coherent nation.

NON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs)

Closely related to but different from CSOs are Non Government Organizations (NGOs). NGO are non-governmental organizations which are founded voluntarily by citizens who have the zeal to work for the welfare of the citizens. They are generally formed independent of the government; non-profit making and very active in humanitarian and social causes.

They also include clubs and associations that provide services to their members and the larger society. They have high degree of public trust which make them useful stakeholders for the concerns of society. Some NGOs have been known to be lobby groups for corporations, e.g, the World Economic Forum. But they are distinct from International and inter-government organizations (IOs), in that the latter group is more directly involved with sovereign states and their governments.

Examples of NGOs are: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Salvation Army, Emergency Nutrition Network, Health link, Health Net TPO, CARE (fighting against global poverty) and Global Humanitarian Assistance.

Other examples are: INGO – An international NGO such as Oxfam; ENGO – An environmental NGO like Greenpeace; RINGO – A religious international NGO such as Catholic Relief Services; CSO – A Civil Society Organization like Amnesty International.

THE NIGERIAN STATE

The Nigerian state began as a colonial imposition on a wide range of polities existing within Nigeria’s current boundaries, making it in many ways a nation of nations several decades of irresponsible military rule, after the exit of the colonialists, left the country as deeply divided as it was prior to independence. Military leaders and their civilian allies exploited ethnic differences to prolong their stay in power and to capture the vast oil revenues that had been centralized under state control since the 1970s. As the mismanaged economy rose-divided with oil prices in the 1980s, the handful of elite with access to the state grew fabulously rich while the number of Nigerians living in poverty rose shockingly from a quarter of the population in the 1970s to three-quarters of the population in the 1990s. The elite-known as the ‘Big Men”-have massive networks of clients dependent upon them for channels to state Largesse.

NIGERIAN POLITICS

Nigerian politics is primarily a game of “Big Men” seeking to recoup their election investments and to expand their access to state resources, it often has little to do with improving the lot of the vast majority of Nigerian. The great promises of civil society for democratic development in Nigeria therefore, is that the sector as a whole has the potential to reverse this growing political distance between the powerful elite and the largely disenfranchised masses. Civil society’s strength is in preserving a plurality of aggregated interest to balance those of the elite and to check the elite’s excesses on specific issues on occasion. The latter role, however, depends upon a unanimity among civil society groups that is difficult to forge and even harder to maintain beyond the political moment.
THE ROLE OF CSOs

The political elite has long recognized both the promise and problems of civil society, and since the 1960s they have used a combination of repression and cooptation to bring the most powerful and representative of these groups into the orbit of the state. Trade unions, for instance, bear heavy state regulation and are partially dependent upon the state for funds. Nonetheless, unions and other great associations like the Bar Association fought military rule throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and suffered as a result.

As these massive Civil Society groups were hobbled by military interference, many Nigeria activist turned to a new type of organization that began to proliferate in the late 1980s, the NGO. It is important to remember that NGOs are non sub-category of CSOs.

NGOs at first were often small and structured undemocratically in that their executives were not elected by the members of the organization or by the population they sought to serve. Yet NGOs offered services and skills to replace those abandoned by the receding state, and provided critical platform for dissent against the military that international donors could readily recognize and support.
Civil Society organizations balance the strength and influence of the state, they are supposed to protect citizens from abuses of state power. They play the role of monitor and watchdog. They embody the rights to citizens to freedom of expression and association and they are channels of popular participation in governance. Moreover, the end of military rule in 1999 opened political space and provoked a civil renaissance. The older, massive, interest based associations like trade unions and professional associations have rebuilt their structures and reasserted their former dominance of the political scene. Meanwhile, NGOs have proliferated across the country and many have begun the process of democratizing their own structure and developing mechanisms of representation and accountability.

Civil Society has the potential to reserve the growing political distance between the powerful elite and the largely disenfranchised masses. However, CSOs are not of one mind on issues, nor do they speak with one voice. CSOs represents issues from nearly all sides and speaks with a cacophony of interests and demands that overlap, complete and/or contradict one another. In this context, can CSOs bring the government to reflect citizens’ interest?

To be continued…

Thought for the Week

“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)