Over the years, the roles played by civil society and human rights organizations in Nigeria have evolved, and continue to do so. We see in the current edition of PLAC Beam, that many of these organizations go back to the country’s years of military rule. Then, they were mostly critics of egregious violations of citizens rights by successive juntas.
As the country progressed toward democratic rule, they became observers of the process, pointing out errors, omissions and violations. However, over the past decades of civilian rule in Nigeria, they’ve gone beyond mere criticisms to becoming active participants and partners in finding solutions to the problems they’ve identified over time.
The result is that the imprints of the civil society are now to be found in all the key electoral and democratic reforms that have occurred since Nigeria ended military rule. They also remain actively engaged in finding answers to the country’s governance problems and building a road map for the future.
This edition looks at the key developments in this evolution of roles and features interviews and insights from key civil society organisations that have been very active in campaigning for an improved electoral process and other democratic reforms. Being central to the theme of this edition, information is presented on the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room and efforts they have made over the years to improve election administration and citizens’ political participation. This includes the recommended reading for this edition, which is a threshold document for the 2023 elections published by the Situation Room.
Happy Reading!