With Uche Nnadozie
I have always had issues with our civil society. I have been a member of that very diverse grouping from my early adult days. This was during the military, especially the Abacha days. I tell you there is a huge difference between what we have now and what we used to have.
Last week (a certain) Deji Adeyanju informed his followers on social media platform Facebook that he has quit a group he ran with others during this dispensation. The group, Our Mumu Don Do had as one of its more prominent leaders, Charles Oputa, better known as Charly Boy. The group is principally a political pressure group. They made the right noises during the extended ill health of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Their noise on the streets of Abuja was accentuated by their presence on social media.
Then they called on the president who was ill and being treated in London to either resign or let appropriate institutions of government have him removed. To them the president was stalling the progress of the country by remaining the commander-in-chief while multifarious problems were besetting the nation. This was in 2017 or thereabouts.
To a reasonable extent, the group which morphed other smaller groups began to attract scorn. I remember when they went to a market in Abuja, they got attacked by traders or their agents. The group was more interested in opposing the current Federal Government. They didn’t really care about other infractions by other tiers of government. If they did at all it was in passing. To be fair to them, there is nothing wrong in choosing you battle and maintaining your lane.
Last week however, after Adeyanju resigned from the group he went ahead to make further allegations which insinuated that Charly Boy may have made money in the name of the group while he was away in prison.
Adeyanju was arrested for unrelated reasons and a Kano magistrate remanded him in prison. He alleged that during his absence, a lot of money flowed into the organization with Mr. Oputa refusing to disclose details. Oputa replied that Adeyanju was not altogether wrong as indeed he received money from spokesman of Buhari campaign organization Festus Keyamo. In fact he went ahead to suggest a large figure and maintained that the failure of Adeyanju to share from the heist is the reason he is angry and quit the group. Although Keyamo has denied paying a dime to Charly Boy who released a negative video against Atiku Abubakar and to some extent APC, for the purposes of this article let’s agree he paid some money.
First, Charly Boy made it look like the money that was allegedly paid to him was for his personal work. As a singer, he recorded a disrespectful track against PDP candidate in the run up to the presidential election. Although the track had something bad about APC too, it was the PDP part that gained traction. By projecting the reason for the payment to be his work, he was conveniently telling other members of his group that any payment made was not to the group but his personal professional artistic work. He consigned his group to the background and elevated his personal greed. This has been the bane of activism and community based organizing in Nigeria. It has become a money making venture for personal aggrandizement. This is why members of the civil society are not accorded the normal protection and respect they deserve. They are treated like bugs because they go from government house to government house looking for crumbs in the night; only to come out in the day to act as though they are for the people.
To begin with many of these organisations are not registered officially with relevant agencies. They do not follow laid down rules and regulations of properly run civil society organizations. They don’t open their books to government as required by law and do not open their books for the public either. It is a very opaque part of our society. Yet they are the ones that rush to upend government and its functionaries. They project a larger than life image that is meant to side with the people. But it is not true. They stand for their pockets and have made immense benefits from the system. Adeyanju for example is a PDP operative, yet he pretends to be a civil society honcho who demands good governance from APC only. Although PDP has the right to promote activists that can protect its interests in the civil society space, APC also has.
However the issues between Charly Boy and Adeyanju are finally resolved, one thing is sure; civil society activism is now largely seen as an industry with benefit. This benefit is almost always at the mercy of the public they purport to represent. I am disappointed but not surprised at the turn of event. Nigeria actually needs a vibrant and non partisan civil society apparatus. It helps to sustain democracy and defend political excesses. Power corrupts, they say, so no matter the intentions of any government there will always be that time it may use its powers to undo good virtue. Such time is when activism is needed, so that they could beat back sense and propriety into such a government. It is even worse when money is alleged to have been collected from persons working for a government that you oppose.
That is classical betrayal. Charly Boy and his side kick should no longer have a role in activism of this nature.
They should just set up their shops and find their trade.
