On August 12, 2015, Ese Oruru left her mum’s shop to visit a sick
friend and never returned. There were several propositions to her
disappearance. According to news sources, a man known as Yellow, whose real
name is Yunusa Dahiru abducted her. Other accounts say that 13-year-old Ese has
been secretly dating Yellow, a 25-year-old tricycle operator, so they eloped.
However, these accounts have something in common, Ese and Yellow left Yenegoa,
Bayelsa without Mr and Mrs Oruru’s consent. Ese was taken to Kano and was
reportedly forced into marriage and converted to Islam.
This piece of information would have remained
unknown by the public without the timely intervention of Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs) such as KHAN Initiative and Child Protection Network
(CPN). They immediately contacted relevant newspapers and launched a nationwide
campaign – FREE ESE. Through rallies and social media, they spoke against child
marriage. Eventually, Ese was rescued by the police, at this time, she had
turned 14 and was five months pregnant. Yunusa ‘Yellow’ Dahiru was arrested and
prosecuted.
The successful ending to this traumatic tale
happened only because of the intervention of a network of NGOs who worked
tirelessly to bring her back home, even though it involved the high and mighty
in Kano.
NGOs/Civil Society Organisations
(CSOs) have become a huge part of economic development in most third-world
(or developing) countries. In most of these countries, they work around
specific issues such as promotion of quality education, human and child rights
advocacy, agricultural development, civic and social responsibility among many
others. While most African leaders talk on these points to amass votes during
elections and curry international favours, a large share of the actual grind is
done by the NGOs. Therefore, it is safe to say that the continent would be far
worse without the involvement of these charitable organizations.
However, in recent years, there has been a
crackdown on the activities of NGOs and CSOs, a form of censorship and
restriction, which, if not adhered to, can result in imprisonment. Nigeria is
on the verge of passing one of those bills. In 2016, NGO Regulation Bill was
sponsored by Honourable Umar Buba Jibril, the deputy majority leader. The major
objective of the bill is to establish a regulatory commission which would
supervise, coordinate and monitor NGOs, and civil society organisations.
If Nigeria decides to pass this bill into law,
it will join Ethiopia, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone, where NGOs and CSOs
need to go through series of bureaucratic bottlenecks to get registered and
operate.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights United
Nations says,
“A dynamic and autonomous civil society, able
to operate freely, is one of the fundamental checks and balances necessary for
building a healthy society, and one of the key bridges between governments and
their people. It is therefore crucial that NGOs are able to function properly
in countries in transition, as well as in established democracies.”
Does the Nigerian government even have what it
takes to monitor transparency and accountability in the NGO sector? “No, they
don’t,” Sola Fagurosi says. Fagurosi, who runs One Life Initiative, went on to
explain that the government does not have the moral credibility to pass such a
bill, when they also have not been transparent with their affairs. “The NGOs
are doing so much more than the government, even though they have budgetary
allocations for each sector of the economy.”
In the countries where NGO activities are
coordinated or regulated by government, experts complain of opacity instead of
the transparency promised. For instance, in Ethiopia, which is one of the
poorest countries in the world, civil society organisations that receive more
than 10 percent of its funding from abroad is considered foreign. According to
the Human Rights Watch, “[foreign] groups are forbidden from doing any work
that touches on human rights, governance, or a host of other issues.” This is
contradictory to the claims by the Ethiopian government that the NGO law will
“ensure greater openness and financial probity on the part of nongovernmental
organizations.”
HRW reports that, instead, there have been
restrictions on human rights and governance-related work as to make most such
work impossible, violating fundamental rights to freedom of association and
expression provided for in the Ethiopian constitution and international human
rights law.
According to Mr. Seyi Oyebisi, the Executive
Director, Nigeria Network of NGOs, Hon. Jibril’s sponsored bill has no legal
backing. “The Nigerian constitution guarantees freedom of assembly and
association. The right to seek use and receive resources – human material and
financial – from domestic, foreign and international sources is an essential
element of the freedom of association guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution
and international laws,” Oyebisi says. His organization has held several
meetings with the House of Representatives where there was a mutual agreement
that the NGO bill should be terminated.
However, he noted that there is a pressing
need for accountability and transparency in NGOs and CSOs.
NGOs and CSOs in Nigeria are not without
regulations. There are legal frameworks which makes them accountable to the
Federal Inland Revenue Service, Corporate Affairs Commission, Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission and the likes. Rather than create and fund another
regulatory body, the government needs to strengthen existing laws and weed out
non-complying organizations.
This thought is supported by Fagorusi. He
states that “the space needs to be regulated because some people have become
NGIs, Non-Governmental Individuals, diverting funds and grants for personal
use.” In demanding accountability, Fagurosi suggests that NGO founders should
step aside after a stipulated time to ensure and promote transparency.
This report was made possible
by the BudgIT Media Fellowship 2017
Source: The Cable
No comments: