CSOs in our democracy

Normally, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are part and parcel of a country’s democratic experiment and they play a complimentary, critical, questioning and prodding role to elected officials, agencies and institutions. Even though Nigeria has operated an American-style presidential system of government since 1999, in which three branches of government are supposed to check and balance […]

Normally, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are part and parcel of a country’s democratic experiment and they play a complimentary, critical, questioning and prodding role to elected officials, agencies and institutions. Even though Nigeria has operated an American-style presidential system of government since 1999, in which three branches of government are supposed to check and balance one another, it is important for civil society agencies to check all three of them, lest they become lethargic or even collude against the people.

Many CSOs have been playing this important role since the return to democratic rule in 1999. Many of them, in fact, had sharpened their teeth during the years of military rule when there were no elected governments, no parliaments, no political parties and the judiciary too was circumscribed with “ouster” clauses. In that situation, newspapers and CSOs rose to the challenge, filled the void and provided admirable checks and balances on the military governments.

This tradition was carried over into the Fourth Republic. Since 1999 we have had elected executive officers, at least at the federal and state levels and sometimes in the local governments as well. We have had national and state assemblies unbroken and we have had the judiciary at all levels as well. They have discharged their functions sometimes to our satisfaction, many times not to our satisfaction. CSOs therefore stepped in to check and prod them.

Sometimes however, some of the CSOs went overboard in their goals, actions, modes of operation and their contacts. Some groups extended constitutional freedoms of speech, assembly and conscience to actions that nearly imperilled the state and the constitution. These included secessionist groups as well as overzealous religious groups. In fact, it is noticeable in Nigerian democracy that CSOs are often more visible than political parties. Even though they cannot legally sponsor candidates for election, they propound their views and their agenda more vigorously than our political parties do, including the two major ones.

The visibility of CSOs in our democracy stems from the weakness of political parties in the Fourth Republic. With no ideological orientation, no clear programmes, poor organisation, poor cohesion and the tendency of members to jump from one party to another, our political parties hardly live up to their role as mobilisers around programmes and issues. Nature abhors vacuum and CSOs stepped in to fill the void.

An unfortunate aspect of this however is the foreign connection of many, if not most of our CSOs. Many prominent local CSOs are affiliated to foreign counterparts and heavily rely on them for financial support. A lot of money also flows to many of our CSOs from foreign foundations and corporations. In some cases this is philanthropic but some of these foreign bodies are mere fronts for their national intelligence organisations. Many prominent centres and “think tanks” in the Western world are stuffed with retired diplomats, soldiers and intelligence officers. To that extent their goals are less than altruistic but are tied to their nations’ strategic goals and aspirations.

From our viewpoint in the Third World, strategic goals of some powerful nations involve domination, brainwashing, economic exploitation and political subversion. Not in all cases; some rich nations have no history of colonial domination and have deeply ingrained traditions of charity and philanthropy. The most powerful ones among them however are not so inclined and they ruthlessly pursue their strategic national interests at the expense of poor and weak nations.

It is for these reasons that recent moves by some members of the National Assembly to propose measures to improve the monitoring of CSOs should be viewed and appreciated. Nigerian CSOs should be stopped from colluding with foreign centres and think tanks that are found to be fronts for intelligence agencies. We should not permit unbridled foreign machinations in our country. Apart from such established cases, CSOs should be encouraged to pursue their activities unhindered. In the long run, we expect political parties to reorganise and reassert themselves as the main agents of democracy.