By John Amoda

THISDAY Thursday, February 10, 2011 in its Business World featured the role of civil society organisations (CSOs) in development and governance, policies and projects.

The means through which this theme was treated was the interview of Chineme Ume-Ezeoke, the Special Adviser to the President on Relations with Civil Society. His view of the role of CSOs, NGOs and NSAs (Non-State Actors) in the development and policy implementation is summarized in the following:

“Our democracy can only function and endure when all key components of economic growth and society stability (are) supported and sustained.

This can only be achieved when all processes of development are driven with a good number of civil society participation. So the policy we are canvassing is equitable participation of civil society organisations in all processes of development. We have civil society working in different thematic areas like community health, environment, public procurement, legislative advocacy and poverty alleviation and so on.

The important factor is focus to establish a common ground for positive engagement and that is what the office is striving to put together. Civil society organisations must also actively seek ways of working in partnership with the government at all levels, bringing their levels of expertise to bear in the governance process for the good of all.

Wherever government is not meeting up with its governance responsibilities, the civil society must challenge the leaderships to deliver on promises”.

In this lucid explanation of the functions and achievements of his office, the SA highlights not only the role of CSOs, but also their structure. CSOs as they interphase with the office of the SA are generically describable as interest groups, pressure groups, advocacy groups, the private sector, labour unions, etc.

CSOs in the above usage are coterminous with non-governmental organisation (NGOs) or non state actors (NSA). As above portrayed they supplement the electoral process in ensuring comprehensive representation of those interests not captured by electoral party interest articulation and aggregation.

The question raised by this need to supplement the representativeness of electoral parties is at once the problem in the way this democratic need has been met, for this solution is the consequence of the problem definition in the first place.

I will explain. Civil society has come to mean something other than what it is, that is interest groups that are not electoral parties. In the thinking of the inventors of the concept, civil society exists in contrast and in opposition to the state.

Jean Jacques Rousseau in his Social Contract makes this polarity plain in his juxtaposition of the General Will to the Will of All. The General Will is the Ethical End articulating the true interest of mankind as presented to society; and it is an end that society can be forced to embrace as their own real end, if in their ignorance they are opposed to the General Will.

On the other hand, opposed to this Ethical End, this Hegelian Ideal, the Absolute, is the Will of ALL, which is the aggregation of the disparate interests of individuals and groups uninformed by the Ethical End.

Civil society is the concept that represented this Will of All, where all is the untutored interests, prejudices, biases of members of society which particularly or in aggregate ought not to be sovereign.

This dichotomy, ethics based, found special relevance in the opposition of the public to the private interest, an opposition amplified in the ideological contestations of proponents of liberal capitalism, socialism and fascism. One of the outcome of this contestation has been the opposition of public or state dominance to private sector dominance in the economy and politics of society.

This opposition has been amplified in Africa’s post-colonial society where government dominance is opposed to private sector or market dominance in the political economy. It is by such a route that the role of civil society has been amplified, especially as it is proposed as a cure for the corruption of government dominance in Africa’s political economy.

The above is the ideological background of the advocacy of the role of civil society in governance as a structure for limiting the scope of the public sector and for monitoring it towards effecting its accountability to the people.

The promotion of the role of civil society by the international community in its most radical form is in furtherance of the shifting of the functions of government to civil society.

Thus, the purpose of the advocacy of this radical involvement of civil society in government is to transfer some of the functions of government to civil society agencies funded for that propose and monitored for its democratisation and corruption containment outcomes.

The government that have understood this radical intent of international donors have responded creatively by setting up such offices as presently manned by Chineme Ume-Ezeoke.

This response is, however, not an effective answer to the challenges of governance that have provoked the international advocacy of civil society based democratisation. The problem is not a problem of government as such as it is a problem of the political parties and the state interests they champion.

The Nigerian multi-party electoral politics is largely entrepreneurial. Its defects cannot be remedied by externally radicalized civil society.

Things will remain the same as long as the electoral system remains the same. Things were the same in Tunisia and the same in Egypt. In the age of instant learning of lessons through the internet, the Egyptian of today can be the Nigerian of tomorrow.

Then perhaps the ineffectiveness of electoral system supplemented by corrective involvement of CSOs to secure private interest order of politics may be learnt, a day too late.