The National Coordinator of the Civil Society Organisation on Community Advancement and Humanitarian Empowerment Initiative (CSCHEI), Dr Kunle Yussuf, has called on the Federal Government to establish a Civil Society Commission to achieve social development goals nationwide.
Dr Yusuf made this call in Abuja during the formal launch of the 36 state executive members. He explained that the Commission would coordinate the affairs of the over 45,000 registered non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating across the country.
Yusuf stated, “It’s been a long time we’ve been struggling to have a Civil Society Commission in Nigeria. We started this call about 7 to 8 years ago. The Civil Society Commission has not been approved. We started the Disability Commission; it has been approved; we are part of the people that started the Diaspora Commission that has been approved and it’s now an agency of the Federal Government.
“We hope that in a few years to come, civil society as a federal government commission would also be approved.
“So, what we are doing now at CSCHEI is coordinating, promoting, supervising, and mobilising all the registered NGOs, CBOs within the context of community, social, and humanitarian empowerment in Nigeria.
“It may interest you to know that presently we have over 45,000 registered Civil Society and NGOs in Nigeria, but almost 17,242 are within the community social development and humanitarian empowerment component.
“It is my privilege to inform all of you sitting here that out of this 17,242 at the moment, CSCHEI has access to 7,300 various NGOs working on social initiatives.”
Dr. Yusuf argued that one of the mandates of the proposed Commission would be to ensure the domestication of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in all the states and local governments in the country.
“Our mandate is to domesticate SDGs in all the local governments in the states. The data has proven that Nigeria is far backward as far as the SDGs are concerned.
“In 2015, 196 nations signed into SDGs. Every year at UNGA, you will see a rating of each country and how they perform. Unfortunately, right now, our rating is on the lower side of the radar, and I hope with the establishment of this body and platform, your contributions would also be meaningful in achieving the SDGs 2030.”
In his keynote address, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Dimeji Bankole, who chaired the launch, underscored the need for Nigeria to adopt evidence-based data for development initiatives.
He said: “For the younger people who have put all of these together, you should all continue to remind yourselves that nobody is going to ever give you anything; you just have to go and hustle for it yourself.
“I think some of us, I said some not all of us who have held political office or holding political office I think we’ve embarrassed you enough. So, it’s really up to you guys to get to really move on.
“I think we are all in agreement that welfare and security are the main reasons for us saying we want to have a collective organization called Federal Government, State or Local Government, or whatever form of government; we are all in sync with all of that.
“What I’m excited about is the fact this organization has decided to make its strategies based on logic, science, and data. What does that really mean in my own language, maybe we should just stop deceiving ourselves with unnecessary nonsense figures we all plan with, and we now expect things to go in the right way for us?
“All the intellectuals that we need, we need intelligence; all of them are in the Universities in different parts of the world. We have access to all these information from public service; it’s now up to us to use the evidence-based data for development initiatives.
“And that’s really a matter of character, not a matter of intelligence. Intelligence you can always hire anywhere; you can hire professors, but character that one depends on your father’s name.
“I’m very proud to say all I have achieved have nothing to do with Oxford degrees, Harvard degrees, or military experience, all those things I’ve managed to do, no, no, no.
“It has to do with my father’s name and all I have to do is to hand that name to my children so that they can do something with it… Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
“I just want to advise you that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, because all those lofty goals that you want to set, achieved somebody has already put it down on papers somewhere. Even on Google, you could see all those things; there’s no need to reinvent the wheel; yours is now to drive the path relevant to what anyone says.
“It does not necessarily have to be in government, not really, if it is, then you’re privileged. I’m going to wish you the best, in all you’ve started but if nobody is insulting you then you’ve not started anything,” Hon. Bankole noted.
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