A south-South Regional Conference held in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State Capital, organised by Global Rights in partnership with the community of Practice on Civil Space strengthening, has solicited an improvement on the operational environment for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the Country
The Conference, which had as its theme “Scaling Policy to Action – Strengthening the Regulatory Environment for Sustainable CSO Operations at the Subnational Level,” brought together civil society leaders, regulators, and development actors to reflect on policy recommendations from the 2024 regional convening and exploring how they had been scaled into action.
Experts believe Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) play a critical role in promoting democracy, fostering accountability, and empowering communities, across Nigeria—especially at the sub-national level—many CSOs face operational and regulatory constraints, including duplicative registration requirements and burdensome financial obligations imposed by multiple state agencies.
Ken Henshaw, Co-chair, Community of Practice and head, said ‘We the people, ‘ expressed dismay that the civil space in the country was getting restricted adding that it has become for the citizens to participate actively in democratic process in the country.
He said strengthening the civic space would broaden the participation of the people in exercising their rights, adding that the freedom to speak out is limited while the existing atmosphere is repressive .
According to him, many Nigerians have been killed during protests while exercising their rights while both journalists and members of the civil society have been arrested and detained in the country while exercising their democratic rights.
He however expressed the hope that “with civil society organisations learning to work closely together with the authorities the suspicion was gradually disappearing
In her contributions, Abiodun Baiyewu, the Executive Director, Global Rights, noted that “great progress has been made in the past one year to deepen the consensus on the contributions of Civil Society Organisations to the development of the country adding “let us build Nigeria where peace and justice reign.”
In one of the panel discussions chaired by Tijah Bolton Akpan, Executive Director of Project Alert, he decried the disparity in the operating environment between the North and the Southern part of the country , a development which he attributed to the different focus of CSOs between the the two regions of the country.
According to him, a whole new level of restriction exist between the North and South adding that while the focus of the CSOs in the North may be on humanitarian services, those in the South were on governance and human rights.
There was also a presentation of an award to KufreAbasi Edidem, the Deputy Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly for his contributions to the strengthening of the civil space in the State.
Edidem, who presented a paper at the conference, highlighted the contributions of the civil society in the country, which he said, included the promotion of the rule of law , social justice and furthering political participation among the citizenry.
