Showing posts with label Non-Governmental Organisations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Non-Governmental Organisations. Show all posts

Thursday, December 15, 2016

The Trouble With Fake NGOs

Lewis Obi
The oddities, even barbarities, of Nigeria’s daily life can sometimes be truly overwhelming.  Some of them occur so frequently that they compel Nigerians to think they are normal.  An example is the “big” protest in Abuja last week over the Shi’ite cleric Ibraheem El-Zakzaky.  He has been detained without charge for one year.  So you sigh in relief, and say, oh, some freedom-loving patriots want the old man tried or freed.  He has suffered like the Biblical Job.
On the contrary, the protest was for the exact opposite.  In the new era of ‘fake news’ I try to be choosy but I just could not resist trying to know why “thousands of Nigerians are currently protesting against the ruling of a court that incarcerated leader of the Shi’ite Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, be released unconditionally.”
The protesters were said to have taken over the Federal High Court Abuja and had arrived under the high-sounding banner “Coalition on Good Governance and Change Initiative (CGGCI).”  That automatically suggests a charitable non-governmental organization (NGO) devoted to issues of good government and positive change in society.  You would also imagine that a ‘coalition on good governance’ would be dead set against the detention of a Nigerian citizen for more than 48 hours without charge.  That’s what the Constitution demands.  A constitutional democracy ought to faithfully follow the rule of law and due process to realize good governance.  But the CGGCI was clearly against the rule of law and due process and was, indeed, advocating what amounted to tyranny.
The CGGCI protesters attacked Justice Gabriel Kolawole saying the judge seems oblivious of the “dangerous precedence (sic)” his ruling will have on “law enforcement, security, anti-terror fight, terrorism, and extremism and secessionist movements in Nigeria.”  Remember that the Department of State Security (DSS), which seems to be the grandfather of this coalition, (Esau’s hand and Jacob’s voice) once told the public that the Sheikh was being imprisoned for his own safety.  At trial the judge apparently asked for proof and got none.  This was why the judge made references to crimes “not known to law” of which the government was accusing the Sheikh by innuendo.
The chairman of the CGGCI is a man named Comrade Okpokwu Ogenyi.  When Nigeria was a country, a comrade was considered a people person, a friend of the masses, a man who would understand basic things about the oppressed, and an NGO like CGGCI was expected to stand with you to fight for fundamental human rights.  Now we are in the Orwellian 1984.  So, it was Comrade Ogenyi’s view that by ordering the release of a man who has been incarcerated for 12 months without charge, “the judiciary has dealt a fresh blow to the future of Nigeria by legalizing terrorism while leaving the rest of the people at risk of losing our lives (sic).”