ECAS 2013

Fourteen years into a renascent democratic rule in Nigeria, and the state of governance seems to have gravitated to perceived levels of socio-economic and political decadence, thereby calling for a more ingenious and more global alternative. This paper argues that effective policing of democratic regimes, beyond the checks and balances of constitutional provisions, demands extraneous devices such as civil society advocacy and effective coalition of pressure groups. Beyond positioning itself as a routine onlooker or passive action in the governance system, civil society advocacy entails revolutionary volunteerism, which is a resolve to entrench the people's power by all means. To this end, the paper attempts an existentialist inquiry of the state of activism carried out by civil society groups. It revisits the existentialist notions of Fear and Commitment in its inquest into the declining state of civil society advocacy in Nigeria. While it identifies Fear, in the existentialist sense, as the primary reason for the poor state of activism witnessed among civil society organizations, it proposes the notion of Commitment as a cardinal feature of revolutionary volunteerism. It argues that if effective policing is to take place in the present graft-prone democratic dispensation in Nigeria, these two notions bordering on existentiality have to be considered by key players and aspirants of civil society advocacy.

Key words: advocacy, volunteerism, Fear, commitment

The paper focuses on the normative problems undermining the realization of the social objective of civil society in modern Africa. The problem of civil society is premised on two factors, which are the 'fundamental modality of human interaction' and the problem of 'ethnic primordialism'. These divergent phenomena are interconnected in creating social solipsism, isolation and atomized individuals bound together precariously by the cash nexus which has deleterious consequences for democratic progress in Nigeria. This paper employs the research methods of conceptual and content analyses, reflective argumentation and reconstructive procedure to examine the notions of civil society and to provide a theoretical rethinking of the notion of civil society in a plural African state. The thesis of the study is that civil society is fundamentally a socio-moral association necessary for the realization of the set objectives of the state. And for it to intervene in the course of states' social history and emerge as a sustainable association, it must develop a moral resource of trust. Thus, the moral resource of trust is an essential ingredient of civil society. The paper articulates the elements of the moral resource of trust to argue that their application would close the cleavage created by the 'modality of human interaction' and 'ethnic premordalism' in achieving a moral civil and political society for sustainable development in Nigeria.

With emphasis on Nigeria, the thesis of this paper is two pronged. First is that the ideal role of civil society is to cooperate with government in the latter's bid to enhance a good life for the general citizenry. The second is that the popular stance of civil society as always being opposed to government is due to government's failure to enhance a good life for the generality of the population.

To achieve the above, the paper, using the analytic and critical tools of philosophy, begins with a clarification of the idea of civil society, specifying that it consists of a set of institutions that interface the state, business world and family. It proceeds to examine the idea of a good life and contends that this is most effectively achieved within a democratic society before interrogating the history of civil society organizations (CSOs) in Nigeria. This is to establish that CSOs oppose government, struggle for the recognition of civil rights and the establishment of true democratic governance primarily because of government's disregard for the wellbeing of citizens.

The paper notes that with the establishment of civil rule, CSOs in Nigeria are becoming less confrontational and more cooperative with government. This, however, does not preclude the fact that there are many problems militating against the ideal functioning of CSOs in Nigeria. Some of these are examined along with suggestions on how they could be reduced appreciably if not totally eliminated.

Nigeria's quest to achieve growth and development have often been undermined and dogged by inappropriate contractual engagement between the led and the leaders. Resulting from this is the abortion of hopes, expectations and aspirations of the led from their leaders. More than half a century after political independence from Britain and chequered transitions between military and civil regimes at different times, Nigeria is mired in different socio-political and economic crises arising largely from inept leadership and corruption. Despite these challenges, it has not always been a free reign for these difficulties. These woes have always received responses from different interest groups within the Nigerian Society. Civil Rights Organizations (CRO) and Human Rights Organizations (HRO) have always risen to the occasion to challenge these unjust directions and dangerous drifts. They have fashioned various methods of responding to the crises which many times have either been effective or non-effectives. This paper explores ways by which CROs and HROs efforts can be complemented using methods and responses of pre-colonial societies from which Nigeria emerged. This revisit is informed by the fact that the challenges of bad leadership and corruption has roots in history. Pre-modern societies at different times in their history have evolved ways of responding to similar problems. This effort wishes to benefit from the cultural responses of pre- colonial Yoruba societies to similar problems faced by Nigeria. The effort shall rely on archival sources to foreground its claims and engage in comparative studies of these responses.

The lengthy list of failed or wobbling democratic experiments in Africa is certainly unparalleled

in any other region of the world. In spite of the third wave of democracy which had blown over the continent in the 90s, few African countries have made appreciable progress towards the consolidation of their fragile democracy. On the contrary, many African countries have slipped back into authoritarianism through military coup or constriction of the political space to one that is for all intent and purposes dominated by one party. This democratic reversals, it has been correctly argued, is primarily due to the decline in civil rights advocacy and the comatose nature of the civil society.

Taking the above observation as it points of departure, this paper argue that beyond constitutional provisions and efforts of civil rights organization, the consolidation of democracy in Africa requires the spread of democratic virtues and values across the different strata of African societies as well as the emergence of an active civil society which can provide critical watchdog functions to check authoritarian tendencies. Thus employing the insights of Plato, Aristotle and Dewey, the paper explores the role of education in promoting the spread of civic virtues in African polities.

One of the assumed fundamental principles of democracy is that it coheres with the nature of man. Therefore, there is the tendency to believe apriori, that democratic regimes understand man and will, more often than not, act to safeguard the basic interests of citizens. However, there are reasons to doubt this assumption.

Unfortunately, we seem to push less forcefully in making democratic regimes act in accordance with fundamental principles of state policy as we should. The thinking is that by reason of its assumed 'moral high ground' standing, democratic regimes would act naturally in the interest of citizens. The paper raises questions about the nature of democratic regimes and how the illusion of responsibilty often associated with it has diminished active advocacy to check its excesses.

The decline in democracy advocacy and human rights protection constitute a threat to the emergence of true democracy in Africa. For over a decade, seemingly business of government has been conducted democratically in most African countries. The sad news however that is this new found system is under threat. This threat is from ethnic chauvinists that see and interpret politics from self and myopic interest. Thus, the trend, for instance in Nigeria is that every Nigerian wants the President to come from his/her ethnic background. The clamor and agitation for this has reached unpleasant level. The situation has poisoned the polity; it has led to violence and the militarization of the country. Civil rights groups seem to have lost focus on the need to stress competence and progress for the region. We are now left with such acronyms as power shift to the North or power remaining in the South. Zoning has therefore become an issue in our political lexicon. This trend is overheating the polity.

Only very few people are concerned with competence and ability to perform. This development if not checked promptly could lead to violence and disaster. It can also lead to civil war at the extreme. This paper focuses on this issue and I am of the opinion that it is not healthy for the evolution of democracy in Africa.

The United Nations called on all countries to address issues of right to health as a matter of human right. However, civil rights advocacy groups in Africa are faced with challenges in achieving right to health for ordinary citizens.

This paper attempts to bring together the challenges of achieving rights to health in Nigeria, through the exploration of various human rights works and their outcomes. A literature review focusing on human rights and the right to health via refereed academic papers, the World Wide Web, library archives, newspaper publications, books, were the source of information used to establish the presented information in the paper.

The findings suggest that various structural problems are responsible for the denial of right to health. It is believed that when governments fail to acknowledge and enforce human right laws, conflicting priorities becomes the fuel for structural problems reflected in situations such as poverty, civil wars, violence against children, women, vulnerable adults, the mentally challenged and the poor. The result is the production of unhealthy society and eventually economic break down when majority of the workforce is affected.

The way forward, it is suggested, is in the emphasis that the government must take responsibility for the well-being of its people through policy developments and partnership working with other actors, particularly this paper suggests civil rights advocacy groups. However, changes can only be achieved by taking collective action to address the identified root causes of the problems.

Civil society - organised labour, professional bodies, associations and unions - plays significant roles in strengthening the government process as organized platform for constant engagement with elected and appointed public office holders. They call for reforms clean up the polity and attend to the yearnings and aspirations of the people. However, picture derivable from the Nigerian democratic experience in the last one decade of civilian rule suggest otherwise. Indicators of this include the disposition of the electorate towards their representatives on accountability and constituency relation. Individually or collectively, electorates have not posed sustained concrete challenge to their elected representatives through organized avenues for ventilation of grievances or calling representative to account. There has not been effective deployment of organized platforms for the conscious socio-political engineering and the attendant civic spirit which is a desirable condition for viable democratic spirit in the citizenry. However, the dominant faiths - Christianity, Islam, and traditional beliefs - and their leaders, have relatively strong influence in politics as in other sub-sectors of the society. Much the same are the dynamics of poverty, attitude and culture. This paper promises to highlight issues and factors which account in part for the noticeable decline in active civil society activism and its implication for virile representative governance. It will underscores the point that except for pockets of elitist outbursts, the near absence of organized platform for sustained mass action against unpopular policies and unhealthy practices by political actors vis-à-vis budding resentment undermine rather than advance the cause of representative governance.

The ways that current social and political developments in Nigeria highlight ethnic, religious and other cleavages and dredge up old conflicts are frightening reminders of what history documents as precipitating the civil war of 1967-70. Calls for national conferences to discuss the' future' of the nation, for a power-sharing formula that would rotate the office of the president on ethnic and regional lines in order to solve ethnic and regional tensions, the rise of fundamentalist religious and militant ethnic groups using lawful and unlawful means to achieve sectarian objectives, and the prevailing general air of insecurity are some significant intonations of an emerging paradox in which democratic governance seems to be threatening national cohesion. How all these (re)connect with the civil war, that failed but defining experiment with state dissolution in Nigeria's postcolonial history, is all too obvious.

The recent surge of novels dealing with the civil war suggests that Nigerian writers are taking backward glances and seeing both tacit and circumstantial evidences of history threatening to repeat itself. Chimamanda Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo's Roses and Bullets (2011) and Onouora Nzekwu's Troubled Dust (2012) memorialize the civil war, in my opinion, to rouse the nation from what seems to be a collective amnesia. This essay engages these and other writers as activists who use their art to cameralize and re-center the tragic consequences of the civil war for a generation that seems eager to reenact the experience.