By Thompson ABISOLA
The Executive Director, Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights (CASER), Mr Frank Tietie, said Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and NGOs in the country should stop promoting their personal interest.
Tietie, a legal practitioner, gave this advice in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja, saying that most NGOs and CSOs often pushed for the establishment of laws that tended to promote their personal interest.
He said it had become the practice of NGOs and CSOs to always call on government and orgaisations to do the right thing, while they often looked away or did the opposite.
According to Tietie, an NGO or CSO that fails to make its own account books and operations public is not fit to make any request of any government agency under the Freedom of Information Act.
He said some NGOs and CSOs in Nigeria were using the country’s problems as a ground to seek funds instead of solving the problems for the betterment of all.
“However, sadly, in spite of the enormous works of NGOs and CSOs, Nigeria has become more dysfunctional and as such they keep on asking for more funding.
“But if the leaders of NGOs and CSOs are not more preoccupied with funding than the philosophy of improving the lot of the Nigerian people, they would have since long carried out a social revolution that will transform Nigeria into what they preach.
“We have now made a career out of Nigeria’s problems, but that would be good if we are really solve the problems or that we are truly committed to attempting to solve the problems but from my experience, I think we are not,” he said.
Tietie noted that though some of the NGOs and CSOs often claimed that they were set up to solve problems, but whenever they were asked to solve such problem, they ended up not proffering solution,
He said nobody had been able to hold the NGOs and CSOs accountable to internationally acceptable practices, adding that whenever anyone including the government attempted to do that, they were often intimidated.
Tietie expressed regret that NGOs and CSOs were not opening up their financial support from donors but they tended to make government do same.
He however cautioned the NGOs and CSOs to do the right thing before the law would catch up with them.
