CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1Background of the Study

Globally civil society organizations (CSOs) have become active non-state agents of democratic governance saddled with the multifaceted responsibilities of providing social welfare, economic empowerment, humanitarian services, political participation, human capital development and economic activities (Keane 1989, Ikelegbe 2013:2). Besides those captured roles or activities, the civil society has become important agent for engendering good democratic governance through the promotion of accountability, transparency, rule of law, curtailment of human rights abuses, and capitalist exploitation.

Civil society is seen as the cumulus of voluntary, self-generating, at least partially self-supporting, and autonomous associations which are different from the state, business and family and bound by a legal order or set of shared rules that is open to the public (Woods:1992). It is known as the third sector because it serves as a vibrant social intermediary between the state, business and family.

Civil society in Africa and Nigeria in particular is a recent phenomenon that has characterized the recent ascendancy of neoliberal democratic institution. According to Ikelegbe (2007) civil society provides the oil that lubricates the relationship between the government, business outfits and the people. He observed that emerging democracies especially in Africa and Nigeria cannot be consolidated or sustained without a virile and vibrant civil society.

Democracy is about effective and efficient representation and delivery of the dividends of good governance to the masses. Civil society is sine qua non to democratic governance, which explicitly is about providing social security, expanding and advocating for economic opportunities, rule of law, freedom of press, nipping in the bud ethno-religious violence, provision of basic infrastructural facilities, guarantee of oppositions, and a regular free and fair election. However, because the state represents the interest of the ruling class, whose interest is to perpetually control the apparatus of state power and machinery of government at all cost, the interest of the people especially in emerging democracies in Nigeria tend to be disregarded (Ikelegbe 2007, Hearn 2001). Coupled with this is the poverty of democracy in Nigeria which is manifest in the rising profiles of poverty, human rights abuses, hunger, insecurity, endemic corruption and bribery, environmental degradation, diseases, illiteracy, gender violence and underdevelopment.

The role of civil society organizations in the struggle for civil rule, democratic consolidation and sustainable development in Nigeria cannot be overstated. Indeed, they were at the vanguard for the liberation struggle that culminated in the achievement of independence in 1960. In pre-colonial and post colonial government especially during the military regime, the Nigerian print media was the standard bearer of the civil society organizations as they sought to expose acts of authoritarianism, mismanagement, and corruption in the polity.

During military periods, the civil society organizations (CSOs) and professional organizations such as the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), Campaign for Democracy (CD), Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), and National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) were at the forefront in the fight against military rule and for the restoration of democracy and democratic governance in Nigeria (Orji, 2004a:41-51).

From the foregoing it is in a cogent premise(s) to argue that a vibrant civil society remains asine qua non for democratic deepening and onwards political, social and economic development. It is against this premise that this study seeks to examine the role of civil society and democratic consolidation in Nigeriafrom 1999-2017.