Sheriff Balogun
30 June 2009
analysis
Lagos — The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) emerged a platform for the struggle for freedom in April 1989 in response to ordeals Nigerians were subjected by military autocracy, following a coordinated campaign for the freedom of Mr. Femi Aborishade; a Trade Unionist detained under Decree No 2 of 1989, it was that time the group commenced to nurture a platform to champion the freedom of victims of the oppressive policies of military rule.
Meanwhile, detention of persons without trial became rampant under Gen. Muhammed Buhari and Ibrahim Babangida regimes and evidently necessitated the transformation of Free Femi Aborishade Committee spearheaded by a small group of professionals, associates and friends into the CDHR. Within a year, the membership strength of the group grew across the length and breath of the country and the units of the group sprang and became deeply rooted in campuses of tertiary institutions and in several towns.
By 1990, the CDHR became a foremost human rights body that provided free legal assistance to hundreds of victims of inhumane and arbitrary treatments by the military and its agents who profaned Nigeria's political and socio-economic space. Later in early 1990s, the CDHR also featured as a formidable ally in the struggle against continued military rule and for the enthronement of democracy.
However, in the last two decades, the partnership between CDHR and local/international stakeholders blossomed and yielded fruits with marked successes. Through its activities became known for demanding justice for victimized students, teachers, unemployed, traders, professionals, servicemen and several other categories of Nigerians who needed support in moments of tribulations and trails.
The challenges of the group in the last two decades have been very compelling in the cause of defending others, members of the CDHR have been bruised by the authorities, tortured by security agencies, incarcerated in dehumanizing conditions and even killed while protesting injustices of governments and demanding improved conditions for Nigerians. The group however benefited from selfless services of its founders whose foresightedness and unflinching commitments remain priceless.
However, its National President, Mr. Olasupo Ojo in his welcome address while given in-depth description of the group, said CDHR began what could rightly be described an ambitious mission in 1989 under a military autocracy that grew even worse in the first decade of the tortuous journey in the campaign for freedom and democratic society.
He further stated "twenty years on in the struggle, we owe it a duty to Nigerians to commemorate the uncommon courage and faith invested in the Nigeria project. It is important to remind ourselves that ordinary Nigerians and bandmasters in the corridors of power, are the custodians of the little inroads we have made under civil rule following the partial defeat of forces of oppression which military hegemony".
He therefore saluted the courage of those Nigerians killed, maimed and abused by security agents on the various campuses and streets across the country in the course of challenging repressive governments, added that "as a leadership development organisation, we recognise the importance of driving the process of governance through leadership that is responsive and self-accounting. There can never be good governance without credibility in electoral process. CDHR will not condone fraudulent electoral process or shy away from denouncing any government that drives legitimacy though fraudulent electioneering process".
Ojo, however, urged members to participate in government by either seeking elective office or through appointments, noting that members of the CDHR should be good ambassadors as the organisation remains unwavering in isolating government or officials with questionable pedigree or character in politics.
However, governorship candidate of the Action Congress (AC) in Ekiti State, Dr.Kayode Fayemi who was the guest lecturer while presenting his lecture tagged 'Electoral Legitimacy and the Quest for Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria: Reflections of an Activist in Politics' argued that there was belief that civil society activism had suffered a decline, apathy, gone to sleep in the last decade. And he also argued that global activism was on the rise in the form of single issue pressure groups-whether in the form of campaigns like Global Campaign Against Poverty (GCAP) or in the promotion of an international rights regime in the form of an International Criminal Court or a fairer trade regime in the world.
Fayemi who noted that if someone takes a comprehensive view of civil society, one automatically recognises that it was not a uniform entity; neither is it always civil said it was a replica of the political society that can exhibit the ethos, values, symbols and attitudes prevalent in political society.
Speaking further, Fayemi said the idea that civil society had gone to sleep was, in any case a fatuous suggestion that can hardly be backed by empirical evidence, saying that civil society activists had been involved in a variety of issues-of critical importance to the Nigerian society in the last decade.
He said a group like CDHR has been at the forefront of the constitutional reform campaign, adding that the group was primarily responsible for pushing the investigations of human rights abuse through the Oputa Commission; the group has been involved in a range of issues on poverty reduction, HIV/AIDS reduction, gender equality, reduction of communal conflicts, budget monitoring, civil-military relations, leadership development and capacity consolidation in the last decade utilising engagement, rather than confrontation.
Fayemi however, tasked civil society groups to concentrate on how to rescue the people from bad governance in the country, saying that the public office was too serious to entrust in the hands on charlatans, noting that committed activism must help provide the road map that people can employ to help undertake various empowerment projects.
According to him, "there is an urgent need for the group to build coalitions and permanent platform in the public sphere that is beyond party and personalities, but all embracing enough to those who subscribe to the core values of integrity, honesty and dedication to transformation in Nigeria ", adding that "I see a major role for civil society institutions like CDHR in this all important emerging movement. But before then, institutions of civil society too must undertake certain steps to guard the guardians with a view to promoting better accountability in the sector".
"Real leadership ought to involve motivating people to solve problems within own communities, rather then reinforcing the over-lordship of the state on citizens and to build as well as strengthen political institutions that can mediate between individual and group interests between human and peoples' rights. The authoritarian residues of politics over the last decade have however achieved the purpose of turning many away from politics even if they are still active in their neighbourhood associations and their community projects", he added.
He said the main challenge of the civil society and political leadership therefore was to reconnect democratic choices with people's day-to-day experience and to extend democratic principles to everyday situations in citizens' communities and constituencies, added that "operating in the practical field of politics, I have come to realize that when we broadly define this everyday struggles as simply the handiwork of civil society, we strip it bare of its spontaneity and deeper meaning and romanticize the civil society as the rationally ordered, codified and all-knowing alternative to government".
He stressed that he was not sure that the solution to the current deficit that our democracy is experiencing can be solved with posing activism as a counterpunch to politics, adding that "for autonomous institutions to play a different role in mediating citizens' democratic choices, their organic development must be combined in a more nuance manner and a more systemic way with the use of public state power."
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