Resist attempts to restrict you, CSOs told

Connected Development (CODE) has called on Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to resist attempts to restrict their influence. He also urged them to team up with the media in Nigeria towards expanding their areas of influence.

The call was made at a one-day capacity workshop organised and supported by OXFAM for select CSOs and media, yesterday, in Calabar. In their presentations, the Programme Officer, Nkem Ibeh, and the Digital Media Associate of CODE, Msen Nabo, said CSOs and the Media should use advocacy to speak against shrinking of civic space for CSOs.

Ibeh expressed the organisation’s resolve to work towards deepening and expanding the civic space to ensure that democratic governments do not infringe on the rights of the masses, adding that this cannot be done without the media.

“Over time and even recently, we’ve experienced shrinking civic space in Nigeria. We have three states in the North, where they already have the disbandment of civil society activities and this calls for alarm because where we have a society where citizens can’t speak freely, it becomes a problem and that is why we initiated this project to address the shrinking civic space while we call on the civil society, media and even individuals to speak up to policy action of government that shrink the civic space.

“Actually, this project was supposed to be in the North, but we saw that just gathering of civil society is prohibited and as of now, if any of such gathering holds, you get arrested because there is a law that says no civil society activities should go on in the state.

The programme officer encouraged the workshop participants, especially the media and CSOs, to advocate and engage government in order to entrench democratic values in the country, devoid of human rights violations.

“Our expectations from the CSOs and the media, especially the ones we have trained today, is to continually engage relevant authorities. We need this engagement to be reinforced in a civil way,” she added.

While speaking on Digital Media and Communications for Civic Inclusion, Nebo said the media and CSOs have been deprived freedom. She said it is the right of every citizen to take part in the process of governance to ensure transparency and democratic freedom.

Nebo added: “We need to build capacity for CSOs to follow the money, we need to ensure that there is democratic freedom. We should advocate for laws that will ensure that perpetrators are brought to book.”