Gbolahan Gbadamosi, a former judicial editor of The Guardian
and currently Executive Director, Centre for Media Law and Research,
it was who provided the topic of this write-up by raising a query on an
aspect of my essay published on this column last week.
Entitled, Mbeki on Nigeria’s ‘comatose’ civil society (The PUNCH,
November 15, 2013) the intervention examined former South African
President, Thabo Mbeki’s comment that Nigeria’s civil society is
currently comatose and by implication does not act as an effective check
on impunity and corruption by government.
Gbadamosi, in a text message, took
exception to my suggestion that the civil society should be mindful in
seeking funds, of the subversive generosity of the political class on
the one hand; and the often narrow agenda of international funding
agencies, on the other. Gbadamosi’s query is: If non-governmental
organisations and civil society activists cannot seek funds from the
political class or from international donors, where then are they
expected to get funds for their work?
Before addressing Gbadamosi’s pertinent
question, let us recall the magnificent role which the civil society
institutions have played and continue to play in our democratisation
process. Obviously, without the heroic struggles of this segment of our
nation collaborating with the international community as well as
reformist-minded military officers, the transition to democracy would
have been impossible. Who does not recall for examples, the epic
confrontations between the military state and June 12 protesters, the
anti-Abacha militants, the creators of “Radio Kudirat” and the
underground press as well as a motley of human rights organisations that
continuously laid siege to tyranny.
Looking back at the quality of democracy
on offer in Nigeria today, one asks with more than a twinge of
disappointment: Is this what we fought for? No doubt, it is against this
back cloth of awesome civil society struggles in the pursuit of
democracy that Thabo Mbeki observed ruefully that the Nigerian civil
society has been demobilised or politically chloroformed. Let us recap
that several of the leading lights of the anti-military struggle have
taken up political appointments either by election or selection. Indeed,
some of them occupy commanding positions in the current democratic
dispensation; they have also brought around them several intellectuals
in one form of consultancy or another. In this respect, the struggle
between the civil society and authoritarian and corrupt civilian
government at national and sub-national levels has become complicated.
I referred previously to the tenuous
economic status of our civil society and its vulnerability to the
co-optation strategies of the political class bearing in mind that we
have a one-legged economy in which the productive sectors are marooned
while windfall from government is the only game in town. What this
slippery terrain produces is a rump of civil society that maintains some
distance from the political class and a largely partisan civil society
that has become a part of the political elite.
In order not to be misunderstood, let us
make clear that a partisan public sphere as reflected in the advocacy
strategies of political parties, the voluminous literature explaining
party positions, the journalism of the party press all serve to enrich a
nation’s conversation and policy debate. In fact, some political
scientists would classify political parties as belonging to civil
society in view of the overlap in roles and mobilisation functions. In
terms of deepening democracy for example, opposition political parties
by putting the ruling party on its toes and insisting on a level playing
field, exposing corruption within the ruling party while of course
being silent about corruption in their own ranks extend the frontiers of
democracy, lend substance to citizenship rights and play more or less
the same role as a vibrant civil society.
As is well known, some international
funding agencies provide resources and capacity building wherewithal not
just for the civil society but also political parties. For while the
civil society can place issues on the national discourse agenda, they
require the authoritative collaboration of political parties and the
state to initiate or pass bills around them or turn them into policies.
Therefore, the civil society and political parties need not be
antagonistic to each other but should ideally play complimentary roles.
That said, the decidedly partisan nature
of political parties whose main goal is to win the next election makes
it important for civil society institutions to be wary of them. What I
find problematic in the current Nigerian scenario is that too many
political activists are masquerading as civil society activists. This
of course serves the politicians who are using these activists for
celebrity endorsement well since they are also unlikely to be raising
issues regarding their own performance or lack of it, corruption as well
as the authoritarian tendencies which they share with the political
parties they are seeking to displace.
It is against this backdrop that I warned
last week that although civil society activists are in principle free
to seek funds from politicians, they must be clear about the terms and
the possibility that they might end up as the intellectual wing of the
political parties extending those grants. This is another way of
expressing the problem of donor-capture whereby a donor exercises
leverage and increasing authority over the profiles and core mandates of
the recipients. We already have something of this nature in the
relationship between international funders and NGOs leading in some
cases to what scholars have described as international donors as an
alternative state.
Another dimension of the problem
manifests itself when we find that the vocabulary of our NGOs is almost
totally borrowed from the donor community without local adaptations.
Perhaps, for the same reason, the agenda of our civil society is
confined regrettably to the procedural and neoliberal version of
democracy obtainable in most parts of the West with emphasis on human
rights, free market and a downplaying of social democracy and economic
rights. On those terms, democracy becomes no more than electoralism and
is often carried on without the demos i.e. the people.
Civil society institutions are free to
seek funds from the international community but they should be aware of
the price tag of such funding. Interestingly, because of the global
recession, international funding has dwindled to a trickle in recent
times and NGOs in other parts of the world are discussing creative ways
of raising funds such as voluntary donations from members and citizens
who buy into their agenda, membership dues while of course applying
cost-saving mechanisms that reduce their overheads.
In sum and to return directly to
Gbadamosi’s question, civil society organisations that wish to retain
their foundational vision should seek funds from such sources that do
not compromise them, subvert their independence or turn them into
spokespersons or decoys for factions of the political class and for that
matter into proxies of international donor agencies.
External funding always comes at a price
but some prices are heavier than others; while some include the total
loss of identity. It is important however that civil society activity
continues to flourish and for activists to maintain a wary distance from
“Greek” donations that can destroy their souls.
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