By Ikechukwu Okaforadi
The Director General of Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Salihu Lukman, has called on political leaders in the country to develop a more positive disposition towards civil society in the country.
In a statement he issued yesterday in Abuja, Lukman said involvement of Civil Society in leadership recruitment will be an important requirement for the development of Nigerian democracy.
The PGF DG said this will engender collaboration between government and civil Society, adding that if such is structured and organised, with independence of civil society groups guaranteed, the relationship could facilitate strengthened engagement between Nigerian government and citizens.
“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. 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, which should promote engagement between Nigerian government and citizens are created.
“Inability to refine Nigerian politics and create new democratic frontiers would continue to legitimise the mindset of opposition to the Nigerian government by civil society”, Lukman said.
He said to achieve these, 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.
He said part of the objective should also be to enhance processes of political leadership recruitment in the country, which he said are hardly planned and largely impulsive.
This, he said, can be achieved if political parties in Nigeria broaden membership mobilisation to include engagement with Nigerian civil society as a strategy for leadership recruitment.
He said “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”.
He also cautioned against Nigeria Civil Society organization being too loyal to foreign governments to the extent of becoming unpatriotic, saying relationship between Nigerian government and Civil Society organization can be negotiated to avoid the government dictating the agenda.
He said “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.
“Why should Nigerian civil society resent financial support from Nigerian government but accept from UK, US and EU governments? Isn’t it 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”, he said.
