In the first part of this tribute to the memory of the eminent political scientist and engaging public intellectual, Professor Ayo Olukotun, whose tragic passage we were confronted with at a time we should have been savoring the commencement of a new year, we X-rayed his inaugural lecture as the Awujale of Ijebu Ode, Oba (Dr) Sikiru Kayode Adetona Professorial Chair of Governance situated in the Department of Political Science at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State. In that cerebral offering, the engaging scholar interrogated the nexus between the media and governance in an emergent democracy with particular emphasis on the role, record and changing profile of the Nigerian media between 1999 and 2017 when that lecture was delivered.
In his second lecture in the series which was delivered at the Adeola Odutola Hall, Ijebu Ode, on May 10, 2018, the eminent specialist in political communication and governance shifted his characteristically clinical and rigorous scrutiny to the not unrelated topic of ‘Civil Society and Governance in Nigeria’s Evolving Democracy: 1999-2018’.
It comes out in the lecture that in the course of his academic career trajectory, Professor Olukotun had paid as much attention to the interface between the media and governance as to that between civil society and governance. The media and civil society are indeed intimately related and both loom large in his expansive publications on governance reforms with the aim of deepening democracy and promoting, from the intellectual prism, pro-people regimes characterized by accountability, the rule of law, openness and respect for human rights among other features of good governance.
Like many other scholars, he defines civil society as the non-governmental sector which occupies the vast terrain between the family as the most microscopic unity of the polity and the state, which defines the public sphere. In the same way, he makes a distinction between government which connotes public institutions and state actors and governance which encompasses civil society as well as non-state actors and institutions.
He traces the trajectory of civil society’s evolution in Nigeria from the anti-colonial revolts of the pre-independence period featuring women uprising, workers’ strikes, rebellious student agitations through the courageous and pivotal roles played by Civil Society Organizations in the struggles against military dictatorship in the 1980s and 1990s up to the somewhat less fervent and passionate involvement of these CSOs and NGO’s in deepening the province of human rights and substantive democracy in this dispensation since 1999 and offers the reader invaluable insights into the character, temper and complexity of the terrain of civil society in post-colonial Nigeria and especially in the current political dispensation.
The concept of civil society he avers is far more nuanced than the simplistic and misleading depiction of CSOs as those associational groups formed to oppose dictatorship, deepen good governance, strengthen constitutionalism or fight human rights abuses. For instance, he notes that there were indeed also some NGOs which were formed and worked in close collaboration with the military dictatorships of Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abacha for instance. He cites such examples as Daniel Kanu’s ‘Youths Earnestly Ask for Abacha’ (YEAA) or Arthur Nzeribe’s ‘Association for a Better Nigeria’ which worked for the perpetuation of military dictatorship in Nigeria. They are component parts of civil society.
Professor Olukotun notes that “What is interesting is the persistence of this syndrome into the current diplomatic dispensation as well as the weakening of civil society either through seductive government appointments or the winning of elections by former star civil society activists”. We will recall that the scholar in his first lecture on the media and governance made a similar point about the weakening of the media by the incorporation of some of its brightest hands as members of the governing elite through appointments as press secretaries or as Commissioners of Information or Special Advisers on Media.
He wonders if in the wake of the country’s transition to democracy, civil society has not gone to sleep and lost the democratic fervor it demonstrated under the military. In his words, “The question assumes salience with respect to the incorporation of many civil society activists into functioning parties or governmental sinecures in some cases to shut their mouths or buy-off their activism. Of course, there were some civil society activists such as Abdul Oroh of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), Ms Ayo Obe, Dr Kayode Fayemi of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), Professor Julius Ihonvbere, who was a presenter on Radio Kudirat, Professor Chidi Odinkalu, to mention a few who either contested elections and won or were given political appointments”.
Of course, the sober and careful scholar that he was, Professor Olukotun does not entirely write off the invaluable contributions of civil society in strengthening democracy in Nigeria over the last 24 years. He adopts a more nuanced position on the issue. The lecturer does not discountenance the value of the exertions of such groups as pastor Tunde Bakare’s Save Nigeria Group (SNG), or Charly Boy’s ‘Our Mumu Don Do’ as commendable efforts at strengthening and making civil society relevant in the never ending quest for deepening good and responsible governance. He also notes the persistence of the coalition of NGOs under the rubric of the Media Rights Agenda (MRA) over a 12-year period that culminated into the signing of the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) into law – an epochal achievement of civil society in this Fourth Republic.
While acknowledging that in a democracy, civil society can no longer be the informal parliament or opposition which it was under the military since many activists are now members of political parties, he insists that much more can be done to nurture a kind of civil society that can more effectively “countervail state impunity or that can genuinely restrain predatory behavior on the part of state officials”. His suggestions in this regard include sustained campaigns to get people to own democracy beyond perfunctory participation in periodic elections, drawing up enforceable codes of conduct to regulate the behavior of CSO activists as well as enhanced collaboration and bridge-building among NGOs to make for better national impact.
Olukotun laments, however, that all too often, civil society is as factionalized as the political public sphere noting that “Ethnic and religious conflicts, partisanship, corruption, cooptation by state actors and the locational concentration of civil society activities in the South-West are all factors that come into play” and that “A divided nation has merely produced a divided civil society “. Does he agree then with the view that civil society in Nigeria is dead? His terse response: “I don’t think so, but it is obviously in a state of stupor and requires reawakening”. May this incisive scholar’s soul rest in eternal peace.
