Group Urges CSO’s to Join the Political Process

By Hammed Shittu

A leading pro-democracy group in Kwara State, Kwara Must Change (KMC) has said that democracy is all about political participation and the concept of non-partisanship is alien to democratic practice.

The group, therefore, urged all civil society organisations(CSOs) in Nigeria to transform into pro-democracy groups and join the political process instead of asking others to do what they are not willing to do.

In a statement issued in Ilorin over the weekend by the Convener of KMc, Mr. Abdulrazaq Hamzat, the group explained that democracy is about bringing all heads together to find solution to societal problems and being none partisan amounts to confusion or ignorance of what democracy really entails.

According to him, “political participation is the only realistic process to good governance in every democratic dispensation.

“Anything outside of participation in democracy will amount to willful ignorance of democratic practices,” Hamzat said.

He added: “World over, there’s nothing like non-partisanship in democracy, every single member of the society is expected to participate in the political process to contribute to the development, not just wait for the outcome and then start complaining.”

Hamzat explained that in a democracy nobody could arrogate to himself any authority not conferred on him by the people and the only means by which a people could confer authority on any individual or group is through political participation.

“A nonpartisan entity cannot usurp political authority given to elected individuals no matter how poor those individuals are, all the entity can do is to speak and continue to speak,” he said.

According to him, only those who have received people’s mandate to represent them could effect positive change, noting that all others would only be spectators in decision making process.

“Joining the political process will ensure that more quality hands are within the system to access firsthand information that would aid the process of transforming our society for better,” he said.

Hamzat explained that activism would make one informed as well as make one to be arrogantly deviant, while politics would make one detailed and co-operatively humble, adding that, if one combined both qualities excellently, one would become the greatest tool for governance transformation and learn the right approach to make the right impact.

“We need capable and passionate individuals in political and public space across board to move the country forward, but this is not the case at the moment.

“But unless those capable and passionate heads are in the political system, the outcome will always be terrible,” he said.

Hamzat concluded that, politics is organisation, politics is planning, politics is dialogue, politics is persuasion, politics is strategy, politics is administration, politics is money, politics is generosity, politics is intelligence, politics is tactics and politics is mobilisation.

And instead of denigrating politicians who are equiped with these skills, members of civil society organisations need to join the political process to acquire these skills and utilise same to make impacts from within the system.