Salihu Lukman, the Director General of Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) said the problem of poor relations between the Nigerian government and Civil Society has produced poor funding and very weak organisations of civil society in the country.
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) provide both immediate relief and longer-term transformative change by defending collective interests and increasing accountability; providing solidarity mechanisms and promoting participation; influencing decision making and directly engaging in service delivery.
Lukman stated that levels of welfare of citizens is a product of combined initiatives of both government and non-governmental actors, hence people take care of one another voluntarily and reciprocally (mutual aid), which provide welfare support and improve general wellbeing of citizens.
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The APC Chieftain in a statement in Abuja said with all the realities in Nigeria, there are no guaranteed local funding sources available to support the work of civil society organisations.
“Sadly, there is no campaign in the country to create domestic funding sources for the work of civil society. Somehow, the background of repressive military rule, which made campaigns for human rights and democracy to become the primary focus of the work of civil society, the negative mindset that translate to opposition to Nigerian government is deep-rooted among civil society leaders.
“Civil society leaders believe that opposition to government is a requirement for their work. On the other hand, government functionaries have contempt for civil society and their leaders”, he noted.
Lukman argued that the relationship with government, especially when it come with access to funding has some risks and part of the risk includes the loss of moral authority, which can make civil society vulnerable and susceptible to being controlled by government and political leaders.
According to him, “a major problem is when being independent from government is applied in a way that blocked relationship with Nigerian government but encourages relationship with foreign governments, which may have similar, or even worse risks that could be interpreted to project Nigerian civil society and their leaders as unpatriotic.
“Why should relationship with Nigerian government be considered bad, but relationship with foreign governments good? Most activists in civil society pretentiously overlooked this issue largely because good relationship with foreign governments enable them to access grants from organisations such as the UK Department for International Development (DFID), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), European Union (EU), etc. These are basically funding directly provided by governments of UK, US and countries under the European Union”.
He queried why Nigerian civil society resent financial support from Nigerian government but accept from UK, US and EU governments, asking whether it is possible to negotiate conditions that makes funding from Nigerian government acceptable?
“Part of the disadvantage of refusal to consider negotiating stronger relationship between Nigerian civil society organisations and Nigerian government is that work of these organisations are dictated by priorities set by foreign donor organisations. Whether funded activities of Nigerian civil society organisations accommodate the priority needs of Nigerians is entirely a different matter.
“The fact is, having stronger relationship with Nigerian government could require periodic agenda setting negotiations to determine both priority areas of work for Nigerian civil society as well as the volume of funding to be mobilised. Negotiating these issues may considerably contribute to influencing government’s policy choices.
“In addition to policy choices, stronger engagement between Nigerian government and civil society could also impact positively on the operational conduct of government, which may make government more disposed to engagement with Nigerians.
“The reality is that inability to consider negotiating relationship between Nigerian civil society and Nigerian government is the manifestation of our fallibility. To begin to positively shift to ‘outweigh the loss of an illusory perfection’, will be to debate these issues.
“Negative mindset of completely projecting resentment to relating with Nigerian government condemn the country to below standards frameworks, with no hope of any improvement in site. The consequence is that although, there are some civil society organisations in the country that can access relatively large grants from foreign donors, the outlook of these organisations in terms of both organisational behaviour and service delivery to citizens are hardly any different from all the negative attributes associated with Nigerian government”, the PGF Boss said.
Lukman said there was the need to push Nigerian civil society organisations to change the orientation of operating with a mindset of being in opposition to Nigerian government.
He maintained that initiating negotiation to develop a functional relationship with Nigerian government so that the imperfect framework, which undermine capacity to mobilise local resources can be improved.
“To be fair to most of the foreign organisations and governments providing support to Nigerian civil society groups, there is evidence of support to government as well. Whether the support is balanced such that it is facilitating improved relationships between Nigerian government and civil society is completely a different matter.
“May be, as part of the strategic goal of pushing most of these foreign organisations and governments to support Nigerian civil society to overcome current victimhood mindset, an appeal needs to be made to these foreign organisations and governments to also ensure that support to both Nigerian government and civil society include initiatives to negotiate improved relationship between Nigerian government and civil society.
“Collaboration between government and
civil society, if structured and organised and the independence of civil society groups are guaranteed, could facilitate strengthened engagement between Nigerian government and citizens and will be an important requirement for the development of Nigerian democracy. How can political initiatives to negotiate improved relationship between Nigerian government and civil society organisation be introduced?”, Lukman queried.
He insisted that as a party founded on the vision of change, there is no reason why APC should not prioritise development of initiatives towards improved relations with Nigerian civil society as developing improved relations with Nigerian civil society should be part of the strategic goal of developing Nigeria’s democracy and ensuring that Nigerian politics is being refined and new democratic frontiers.
Lukman suggested that; “the National Orientation Agency (NOA) should be able to provide leadership in initiating and implementing activities to facilitate negotiations for improved relationship between Nigerian government and civil society.
“Part of the objective should also be to enhance processes of political leadership recruitment in the country, which are hardly planned and largely impulsive. This can be achieved if political political parties in Nigeria broaden membership mobilisation to include engagement with Nigerian civil society as a strategy for leadership recruitment?
“Improved relationship between Nigerian government and civil society groups can be designed to reorient civil society to return to being membership based with high measure of democratic control by the members.
“Being democratically controlled by members should mean that activities of Nigerian civil society organisations accommodate the priority needs of Nigerians. This should translate to high impact on levels of welfare of citizens from activities of Nigerian civil society. Capacity for policy engagement will be high”.
