Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has called for stronger civilian oversight to ensure accountability within the defence sector, emphasising the importance of transparent monitoring mechanisms to foster public trust and strengthen Nigeria’s defence establishment.

The centre stressed the need for Nigerians to demand answers for the expenditures made in the country’s defence and security sector.
CISLAC made the call at the ‘One-Day Civil Society Steering Committee Coordination Meeting on Defence Accountability and Civilian Oversight’, aimed at identifying and assessing the progress that has been made so far in promoting defence accountability and civilian oversight in the South East.

Executive Director of CISLAC, Auwalu Musa Rafsanjani, represented by Programme Officer, CISLAC, Bertha Ogbimi, said the Nigerian government has been investing a lot in the defence sector since 2010 without adequate and efficient results.

She said: “Corruption in defence is dangerous, divisive and wasteful and we, as citizens, have roles to play in ensuring that our nation is not referred to as a “Banana Republic”.

She asserted that when resources are not utilized judiciously, the country and its people are exposed to a lot of threats.
Ogbimi revealed that CISLAC has invested in projects to ensure accountability, and explained that a previous project by the centre where an advisory committee SANDS was set up got challenged by the government.

She added: “We’re not there yet, but some changes are being made. Nobody is denying the fact that we need to protect our national interest, but some information is needed by the public to know what steps to take to protect the country and its people.”

Head, of the Monitoring and Evaluation Department at CISLAC, Lovelyn Agbor-Gabriel, who spoke on ‘Advocacy Strategies and Commitments Towards Result-Oriented State Based Advocacy,” explained that non-state actors need to move away from the regular attack system when tackling state issues with the government or other responsible bodies.