Dogara Must End Debate On Bill To Regulate Civil Society — NUJ, NLC, SERAP, Others

Some civil society groups in Nigeria have condemned a bill before the House of Representatives which “seeks to properly supervise, monitor and co-ordinate Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) in Nigeria.”

The groups are Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP; Women Advocates and Documentation Centre, WARDC; Women Empowerment and Legal Aid Initiative, WELA; Partnership for Justice, and Committee for Defence of Human Rights, CDHR.

The groups in a statement, yesterday, signed on their behalf by SERAP Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, expressed deep concern that the National Assembly was pursuing anti-people and anti-civil society agenda by using its law-making powers to wage a deliberate campaign to shield its members from accountability.

The statement read in part: “The latest in the series of obnoxious and repressive bills being promoted in the National Assembly is the so-called bill to establish a regulatory commission to monitor the work of civil society organizations in the country, which passed second reading in the House of Representatives at a plenary session on July 14, 2016, under the leadership of Speaker Yakubu Dogara, who is pushing, promoting and fast-tracking the bill.

“Under the bill, civil society and community groups including the labour union, association of journalists, association of teachers, association of market women, human rights NGOs and other civil society bodies will face intrusive and unwarranted surveillance of their operations.

“Like the anti-social media bill, the anti-civil society bill would seriously violate citizens’ human rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, preventing them from freely forming organizations, meeting together and criticizing the abuse of legislative powers and allegations of massive corruption in the National Assembly.

“We, therefore, call on the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, to use his leadership position to ensure the withdrawal of the anti-civil society bill from the House. “We will take all appropriate legal actions, nationally and internationally, to ensure that the bill is dropped and promote the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly in Nigeria.”

(Vanguard)