By Owei Lakemfa
OUR contemporary civil society movement grew from the late 1980s. In 1988, concerned by the near absence of the movement, the Nigeria Medical Association(NMA), the Nigeria Bar Association(NBA) and the Nigeria Union Of Journalists(NUJ) decided to raise consciousness by holding a joint national commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

To organise this, the NMA sent the unforgettable psychiatrist, Dr Michael Ekpo; the NBA asked Obi Okwusogu to represent it while the NUJ sent Kayode Komolafe, now of Thisday newspapers and I.

At this time, two lawyers: Olisa Agbakoba and Clement Nwankwo, and two journalists, Abdul Oroh  of The Guardian and Richard Akinnola of the Vanguard Newspapers had established the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO). This was soon followed by the more radical Committee for the Defence of Human Rights(CDHR) founded by people like Beko Ransome-Kuti, Michael Ekpo, Femi Falana, Lanre Arogundade, Sam Omatseye, Femi Ojudu and I.

The fledging civil society movement agreed that politics was too important to be left to the rascals in uniform or the businessmen and women who make politics their profession and birth right. In 1990 as the Babangida regime sought to manipulate the convening of a National Conference, the undisputed leader of the Movement, the visionary Alao Aka-Bashorun  led us to counter it, and then convened an all inclusive conference which the regime aborted.

Aka-Bashorun who had warned that the Babangida regime had a “hidden agenda” and was transiting to nowhere, correctly analysed that the regime would abort the ‘transition programme’ and the country will need an alternative force to compel the military to depart. The suggestion was that all the civil society organisations and activists be brought under an umbrella to constitute that new force. This was how the Campaign for Democracy(CD) was founded in 1990 under Aka-Bashorun.

It came to pass that when  the June 12, 1993  presidential elections were annulled,  the CD led the nationwide pro-democracy protests. The Movement’s guiding principles from the 1980s have been that while we should be politically engaged, we should not be politically partisan. We defined our minimum objectives as evolving the sovereignty of the people based on fundamental human rights and their right to basic needs. While individuals were free to join partisan politics, the Movement will not.

For instance, Dr Frederick Fasehun, a civil society leader whose group included Opeyemi Bamidele, now Lagos State  Information Commissioner, and the international lawyer, Kayode Oladele, decided to run for the SDP presidential ticket. He was free to contest, but the Movement did not campaign for  him.

Over the years, the Movement’s positions have not changed. It has worked with its labour component to fight the fuel price hikes, check the excesses of the political elite, oppose the third term agenda, fight corruption and more recently, organised campaigns that Vice President Goodluck Jonathan  should act as President while President Umaru Yar’Adua took care of his health.

One major campaign the Movement has championed is electoral reform. It wants the votes to count, the INEC composition, including its leadership democratised, electoral offenders punished and electoral disputes disposed before the winner assumes office.

These are the antecedents, guiding principles and limited objectives of the Movement. Therefore, the ongoing campaigns by a tiny section of the civil society that Jonathan should not run in the 2011 presidential campaigns is alien to the Movement because it is politically partisan and not part of its  broad agenda. Such a parochial crusade will affect the credibility of the civil society’s  electoral  reforms campaign; the Movement has never been obsessed with individuals; its interests have  always been with principles and systems.

A second problem with this group’s campaign is that it was not subjected to internal debates; if a basic  civil society complaint against the political parties is the lack of internal democracy, no group within its broad spectrum should seek to operate in the same fashion. For the Movement, the principle of collective leadership is a cardinal one.

Thirdly, hurling insults, employing intemperate language and imputing unsubstantiated motives against those that may not agree with its positions is not in tandem with the culture of the Movement. In any case, unless it is the project of the funding partners, is it not politically more rewarding to redeploy the huge resources being expended on  this diversionary campaign to the electoral reform campaign and voter  mobilisation?

Most of us in the Movement today are products of the democratic traditions of the National Association of Nigerian Students(NANS) before its hijacking by undemocratic forces. A zoning formula was written into the NANS  constitution to which I contributed. At its inaugural conference in 1980, the first elected president was Tanimu Yakubu who later became President Yar’Adua’s Economic Adviser.

Unfortunately, backward forces expelled him from school within three months and his tenure had to be completed by the Vice President(National Affairs) who was from Uyo, a different zone. That did not stop that same zone in 1981 from producing the next president in Chris Mamah  who was from the University of Calabar.

In the mid-1980s when the Babangida goons spread terror round campuses, expelling student leaders and killing “only four” students of ABU in 1986, the NANS thought it better to retain its leadership rather than carry out its annual rotational elections. So the then NANS president, Emma Ezeazu ,now Executive Director of the Alliance for Credible Elections(ACE)  stayed as president for over two sessions and none of the other zones protested. So why will any group in the Movement insist that the country must be tied to  a party’s zoning formula? In any case, in whose political interest is this campaign?

The limited agenda of the civil society is to carry out electoral reforms and ensure that whatever faction of the ruling political elite jostling for political power would be given a level playing field. If the civil society movement is to get involved in partisan  politics, it will be for fundamental political change not the cosmetic changes promised by liberal democracy.