Why I support the NGO Regulatory Bill
Fear everything, but with all you fear, fear NGOs. They are, usually as the name implies, (except under Sani Abacha and perhaps President Jones), nongovernmental. They are close to the pillars of democracy and before you start thumping your chest, I don’t mean you and your miserable voting card that you could sell for a mess of danwake. These NGO leaders could walk into the American, British, French or German embassy broke as a pole and come out richer than an elected governor. That is terrible trouble for anyone who knows what to do with the aphrodisiac called power.
They are more powerful than government sometimes. Imagine them putting on the Bunsen burner of events, things that governments want to kill. Like counting the number of days the remaining Chibok girls have spent in abduction when government wants the issue dead and buried. Like walking into IDP camps and really taking care of victims where government budgets money for grasscutters, then going further by briefing the press on what they have spent on these displaced persons and how that has made impact. If there are issues in the camps, such as trading sex for favours, rape or other ‘normal’ crimes, these NGOs turn themselves into whistle blowers badmouthing the government and embarrassing the only president alleged to have secured the endorsement of Donald Trump. Never mind what NFL players think about a Trump endorsement that is immaterial.
Let’s face it; there are two mortal enemies of the African version of democracy - a so-called free press and NGOs. So imagine why anyone within the ruining party, especially one never known to have contributed to anything meaningful in debates or mass-impact bills making this NGO bill his first and gathering such momentum.
Abacha knew the power of NGOs when he drove all others aground leaving only the five fingers of a leprous hand and the now infamous Youth Earnestly Ask Abacha, YEAA to trump them all. President Jones was NGO savvy licensing several of them to launder his image with direct funding from Santa Dasuki. Sai Baba’s controversial group in their Jabi office did not wait for their man to take his first term to a logical initiation when they started heckling hecklers on social and mainstream media.
When a figurehead legislator sponsors an NGO bill for passage among all the troubles requiring attention\, you should agree with our elders that the snake has internal hands. The funniest tirades have come from our hell-spitting Christian folks led by pastorpreneurs and their association fighting tooth and nail to scuttle the passage of this obnoxious bill. They don’t want earthly account for all the fraud that goes on as charities with no impact on their congregation. One would have expected them to go on 90 days dry fasting for Elijah-era fire to consume whoever threatens the source of their egunje. If they had been this vociferous against poverty and the cancer of corruption that has eroded the value system in our society, imagine what would have been the impact. Agreed that many of them would have ended up like Evan Mawarire, the Zimbabwean pastor who breathes Uncle Bob’s free air but yet has the guts to criticise him on the pulpit. But by the blood of Jesus, things would have really ‘changed’.
Don’t worry brothers and sisters in the Lord. This bill is dead on arrival according to the book of Museveni 2021. Just last week, Uganda’s eternal president, Yoweri Museveni locked up the offices of two powerful NGOs - ActionAid and Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies, Gliss for planning to mobilize mayhem in Kampala and environs. Frau Merkel just got her fourth term, so why shouldn’t Museveni get his sixth? Are landmarks for Europeans only? Uncle Bob doesn’t think so; neither do Faure Gnassingbe and his twin brother Joseph Kabila. Things work better when there are no independent hecklers. Without an NGO playing opposition, Museveni could continue as life president, the ambition of every ruiner before him; and to the envy of Obasanjo.
In Naija it is most dangerous to silence the opposition in a country that taught politricians how to form NADECO and create the NADECO route. Our NGO-sponsoring Umar Buba Jibril has been warming the bench for too long, he has a right to his 15-seconds of infamy and now we have given him more than his mental or legislative capacitation. The last clown attempted a Social Media Bill, shot into eternal infamy but grew rich enough to buy and fly a new jet. In the Naija lawmaking machinery, being a nuisance has it’s benefits and politricians know this. The only time they ever stand on the same June 12 podium with the masses is at elections when they need a few real voters’ thumbprints to validate the preconceived results.
Just reassure the clown that the ruining party guarantees automatic tickets and his bill would die a natural death. This brouhaha over this proposed bill is a storm in a teacup. It was aimed at warning vociferous NGOs to play balls and not compete with government and legislooters on projects. NGOs should stop behaving like opposition parties - like counting down on the number of Chibok girls still in captivity and for how long when government has declared total victory over Boko Haram. They should steer clear of IDPs camps and feeding and sanitation in the camps - government has budgets for these things even if they end up with grasscutters. It is anathema for NGOs to build bridges, fixe schools and hospitals just to make government look worse than they already are.
As for the furore over the bill, it is welcome. You could call it, praemonitus, praemunitus - to be forewarned is to be forearmed. This is a war slang known to strategic Generals. Underrate politricians at your peril!