Guardian

AS we jostle with other top nations in the global marathon, 2013 presents Nigeria an unprecedented opportunity to create a “fourth estate”, a new arm of government, and the cornerstone of civil society organisations (CSOs) inclusive of the independent media. The Transformation Agenda demands a Transformation Constitution, which incorporates a role for CSOs and creates a governance quadrangle, a new partnership embracing the existing legislature, the executive, the judiciary and a new “house of civil society”, to be called The Council of Civil Society (CCS). This “bridge house” between the government and CSOs, is the house of solidarity for Nigerians.

The CCS will operate at all tiers of government. CCS members will not compete with elected representatives. Rather, the CCS will complement the legislature and the executive, playing an advisory role, contributing civil society perspectives to issues and mobilizing social organisations and citizens to fully support government. This model views citizens as partners, not subjects to be ruled – the dependency or ”feeding bottle” approach. We propose that the council should work in four interest-based groups, namely, the media, which is also embedded in the women, youth, and other interests group. Once a year, each legislature will deliver to its CCS “A State of the People Address” to outline how legislative work impacts the people they represent.

Calls abound for strong institutions. Many concerned Nigerians call on citizens to participate actively in public affairs. They remind citizens that government alone cannot address the challenges facing the country. But an ordinary individual does not influence the almighty government, anywhere. All over the world, citizens reach big governments through their CSOs. For Nigerian citizens to play active part in the affairs of the nation, the role of our civil organisations requires constitutional recognition. This recognition is the single most effective and efficient way to commit the close to 1,700 branches of government at all tiers to join hands with organized civil society to tap into the energy of participatory democracy. This solution may appear radical. But as Albert Einstein said, ”we cannot solve the problems that we have created with the same thinking that created them.” We therefore need to seriously reconsider our continued adoption of the three arms model of governance.

The new Council will complement the legislature to exercise oversight in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), especially in budget implementation and projects monitoring. The legislature will therefore have more time for its primary duty of making and changing laws. The CCS will act as “watch and work dog”, compelling the civil service to sit up and mobilizing CSOs and citizens to participate in social service delivery.

At the grassroots, we recommend that the CCS mechanism anchors the proposed financial and administrative autonomy for local governments. Accordingly, the 774 local CCSs will work with their respective elected chairmen, their deputies, the supervisory councilors and the local bureaucracies to execute social contracts for the people. Funding for education and health services should be a first charge on the allocations and revenues of each local government. The nation would thereby avoid the huge risks of simply allowing the local governments to collect their allocations directly without an appropriate framework for revenue and expenditure transparency and holding the local tier accountable.

Evidence dating back to about 6,000 years shows that transparency assumes precedence in any successful creative and development endeavour. There was the first biblical declaration at creation “Let there be light: and there was light.” It was against the background of “light”, which in modern times we could term transparency that the work of creation began on earth. We can deduce that without transparency as a first modus operandus of governance, nothing good could result from our transformation efforts. The Freedom of Information Act and the proposed CCS, with its media group playing a vibrant role, will engender transparency, and the demand for accountability and responsiveness. Their intervention will stem corruption in the system.

The present three branches of government fall short of the expectations of Nigerians. This model of governance does not suit our situation where the corruption prone extractive industries dominate the economy. We are aware that oil and gas contribute approximately 95 per cent of foreign exchange earnings and about 80 per cent of government revenue, according to Shell Nigeria April 2013 Report. With this sectional dominance of oil which Juan Alfonso called “the Devil’s excrement” that results in Ross’ “oil curse”, the model is unlikely to deliver satisfactory services, development and transformation. The panacea can be found in the role of CSOs to engage all tiers of government, demand transparency and accountability, expand services and set the stage for accelerated development of Nigeria’s “Third Sector”, the voluntary and non-profit social sector where the needs of 150 million Nigeria’s poor people will be met. These fit the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which engages CSOs as a strategic partner to reverse the “resource curse” worldwide.

But what could be the cost of this enterprise? Working on the estimated 2013 budget of the federation of N9.5 trillions, a capital component of 27.3 per cent, the same ratio in the approved 2013 federal budget, we have N2.6 trillions of capital expenditure, which should impact Nigerians. Dr. Andrew Pocock, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, disclosed that infrastructure in Nigeria cost three times higher than it ought to be, because of corruption in allocation and delivery process. On this basis, the value of the capital budget that could be lost in 2013 is estimated at N1.7 trillions at all tiers of government. This figure excludes savings in the overheads of government. Investing on the CCS at all tiers, about 5 per cent of the expected value not delivered, which comes to approximately N85 billion per annum, in order to recover N1.7 trillions for Nigeria would appear a reasonable investment. So, the CCS project would be good value-for-money.

CCS, this new arm of government will positively affect the 150 million poor Nigerians, the vulnerable and disadvantaged of our society, who were excluded in the framing of the 1999 Constitution. The 812 executive arms at all tiers of government have no more than about 30,000 elected and appointed officials to supervise a public service of about 2.5 millions. Based on the 2007 report of the global citizen network, CIVICUS, Nigerian CSOs now have about 120 million as members. CSOs therefore have the capacity to effectively engage the 2.5 million public servants on a 24/7 basis at all critical points where value is expected to be created.

Why is this constitutional engagement so compelling? First, the ordinary citizen is weak and helpless. There is very little he or she can do to influence government. As proposed, the CCS will act as an intermediary to advocate and mediate the social contracts between the people and their governments. This model also applies in the spiritual realm. For example, in the Christian faith, Christ Jesus, mediates and advocates between our Omnipotent God and mortals under the new covenant or divine contract. Christ mediates between God and His people. Borrowing a leaf from the foregoing model, we can assert that without credible CSO’s in any nation, a people should not expect meaningful improvements in their security, social, economic and other areas of life.

The second reason is that Nigeria’s complex ethnic, religious, regional and other societal diversity overburdens our generic three arms of government. We are the world’s seventh most populated country, estimated to be 170 million people. This population, which is fragmented along many divides has over 250 ethnic groups that speak over 550 languages, spread on 1 million square kilometers of territory, dwelling mainly in rural areas and facing multi-faceted environmental challenges at the extremes of north and south. This chaotic situation was further weakened in the quest to keep the nation one. Societal confusion was compounded by serial balkanization of the four regions in 1963 to 36 states and 35 provinces to 774 local government areas. These demarcations now constitute the basis for social, economic, political and what have you contests by a few elites, to the exclusion of the larger proportion of the citizens.

• To be continued tomorrow.

• Abara, DIC, the Managing Advisor/CEO, Enterprise Trust & Development Company Limited, is a former investment banker and economic advisor to government.