By Patrick Titus, Uyo
Speakers at the 2025 Akwa Ibom Civil Society Week, organised by the Guild of Community Development Advocates (AKGCODA) in Uyo with the theme: “Building Solidarity for Peace, Accountability, Human rights and Development,” raised concerns over the need for a model to encourage sustainable domestic funding in order to ease mandate delivery.
This follows the current decline in international support and funding to so many CSOs in Nigeria and Africa in general.
The Executive Director of “We the People” Ken Henshaw, while delivering a keynote address on Tuesday, tasked participants to come up with genuine and transparent format that would encourage sustainable domestic funding for the growth and development of communities.
Henshaw who also decried some of the laws and regulatory bodies such as, the Non-Governmental Organizations Regulatory Commission, Social Media Bill among others, which, according to him, indirectly aimed to gag the Civic Space called on members to begin to question some of these laws and work towards deepening their grassroots legitimacy.
His words: “aside the fact that governments have expanded the frontiers of restricting the civil space, we have also seen a massive decline in international support for civil society organizations. The Donald Trump era amplified this regression by dismantling the global consensus that once held countries accountable for protecting civil liberties.
“We have failed to generate models of funding that support our work. We should look towards that direction. Who are the philanthropists in Nigeria that can support the work of Civil Society Organisations that are not doing so?
“How come philanthropists elsewhere in the world can support the work of civil societies? There are the likes of Dangote and other philanthropists who can support the work of CSOs, but we must show a high level of transparency and accountability in exploring that opportunity.”
Earlier in is welcome remarks, the Acting Chairman, Board of Trustees AKGCODA, Tijah Bolton-Akpan queried how CSOs can be adaptive in responding to threats of funding decline and harsh policies, urging participants to network and work together in ensuring they come out of it stronger and better.
“Today, right-wing extremism has become a huge challenge to the development role that CSOs play. Funding is on a rapid decline. There is a threat to civic space and these threats take multifarious forms. This event today is constituted to address how we can be more adaptive in responding to these threats and in strengthening our relevance in the society?”
In his Leader’s Address, Prof. Adedeji Adekunle, SAN, encouraged the CSOs to engage the government constructively and not confrontationally, saying their focus should be to complement government efforts.
“Your work involves bringing development and gains of democracy to communities and to the people, bringing the gains of development in a way that the people themselves become aware of their rights. So the mantra really for civil society is to energize, do assessment of a community and to empower people.
“But I know that it must be quite a lot. I think the first thing you have to do is to do a mapping when you come to a particular location and know exactly what each of you is engaged in, what are the gaps in your intervention?” he asked.
