2023: CSOs Warn Colleagues, Military Against Partisanship

The Civil Society Coalition for Transparency and Good Governance (CCTGG) has cautioned the Nigerian military and members of the civil society against partisanship as the nation prepares for the general election.

Convener of the coalition, Victor Udoh gave the charge yesterday in Abuja at a conference for CSOs with the theme, “The Transformative and Informative Role of Civil Societies in Democracy: 2023 General Election in focus”.

He said while citizens have the right to make their choices on the day of elections, they must be careful not to fall into the hands of those who would want to hide under the guise of elections to cause crisis.

Specifically, he lamented the activities of some CSOs in Enugu State where the character of the PDP candidate, Peter Mbah was slandered.

He advised all CSOs to desist from these kinds of acts and promote values that eulogize and promote the fundamental beliefs and philosophy democracy.

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Udoh also urged them to uphold the tenets of civil society engagement which is transformative, informative and promotion of good governance in our society.

Udoh said: “We will also call citizens to please understand that after the 2023 general elections, we are still going to live together with ourselves. There will be no need for us to get into rancour and acrimony.

“Also of interest is the fact that the post-2023 General Elections offer us the opportunity to grow and deepen our democracy. In growing and deepening our democracy, we must remember that the instruments of information must not be used at the detriment of others.

“What do we mean? Military personnel are component members of the society. But when military personnel dabbles into governance, we say that it is wrong for the military to intervene in politics.”

Also, he said the function of civil society is to continue to inform the society of internal mental processes regarding elections or mobilize citizens properly for elections.

He said, “But it is not the duty of civil society, to blackmail people to slander people to give wrong or inaccurate information to members of the society.”

He, however, called on the “civil society particularly the civil society for the rule, support for the rule of law and justice initiative to rescind the activities of its leaders in current time in dabbling into core political activities and blackmailing citizens.”

“Let us put it on record we have the Freedom of Information Law through which we can investigate issues before we reach out to the public. It is a disservice to the nation and a dishonour to ourselves as civil society for us to give out wrong information to the public or yo malign the character of citizens,” he added.