By Abubakar Y Ojimaojo, ABUJA
As part of efforts to create a favorable operational environment for Civil Society Organisations, and CSOs in Nigeria, CSOs have called on the Federal Government, and regulatory agencies to create more awareness and sensitization to expunge repressive legislation and policies.
They made calls at the Agent for citizen-driven transformation (act) Knowledge share fair with the theme “Nigerian CSOs Translating Knowledge to Capacity and Impact “, held at the NAF conference center in Abuja yesterday.
Speaking, Agents for Citizen-Driven Transformation (ACT) National Programme Manager, Damilare Babalola said If there is understanding about what you are asking CSOs to do, they would because there is already a mutual understanding between the both.
According to him, “We recognize that there is a weak capacity to be able to do the full work effectively and the civil society and also the mechanism to drive sustainable development globally.
“Governments are doing quite a lot and it is also their responsibility to bring about the regulations and laws that do not operate on their own. When you are providing regulations to CSOs how much understanding do you have about that sector?
“There is a need for the federal government and the regulatory agency to have the understanding, and that is why we are facilitating the relationship between government agencies and CSOs to share the conversation constructively so that they can understand the mutual agreement.
We are also asking the government regulatory body to come out more with defined regulations is not enough awareness and sensitization about their policies.
“We want them to come up more talk about karma, how it affects your CSOs, and what they expect them to do. We Pencom to come out and talk more about Pencom laws and how it affects CSOs and what is their response to CSOs,” he said
On his part, the Executive Director of Nigeria Non-governmental Organization (NNNGO) Oyebisi B.Oluseyi said explained that CSOs are interested in regulations that enable our operations, but those that do not shrink civic our space and allow us to freely express ourselves, freely assemble, and associate.
While calling on the Civil society organization to do more engagement so that government can know what they do, he added that “Important that within the work that we do, we should ensure that we continue to strengthen our internal governance, our internal controls, so that we can also continue to inspire public confidence and trust in the work that we do.”
