CVE
Active Citizenship Requires More
than Just Elections
By Nengak Gondyi
A
spilos Foundation (AF) is
implementing the Citizen’s
Platform project in Kano
with support from U.S. Embassy
Abuja’s Public Affairs Section. The
goal of the project is to increase youth
participation in governance and
democratic processes by providing
young people with resources and a
platform for engaging with public
officials, especially at the local
government level.
When AF began commenced this
project in August 2018, many
stakeholders doubted young people
would be interested in a grassroots
governance project as opposed to
livelihood projects which they thought
offered more immediate benefits. After
a few sessions of the Citizen’s Platform
training however, word began to
spread which increased participants’
enrolment in the workshops. As of the
date of this article, over 800 youths
from all 44 local governments of
Kano have participated in the five-day
training workshops.
Following the trainings, participants
have begun organizing at their local
government level and strategizing
how they can influence governance in
their communities. Some participants
have already led step-down knowledge
sharing sessions in their communities,
with additional sessions in the planning
stages.
AF initially planned to organize
townhall meetings to connect
participants with local government
officials to kick-start conversation on
community governance. With the
opportunity provided by the recently
concluded 2019 general elections,
however, the AF project team instead
partnered with the Nigeria Civil Society
Situation Room to enable its volunteers
Volunteers from Tarauni and Ungogo LGAs, Kano strategize to address community challenges
to serve as “citizen observers” of the
election. This meant they would
vote while also recording incidents in
their home locales to share with the
Situation Room. This exercise helped
expand observer coverage to more
polling units than would have been
feasible with accredited observers
alone. Participant volunteers found
the election observation experience
richly rewarding as they were able to
contribute towards successful electoral
processes in their local communities.
According to a volunteer in Kumbotso,
Kano:
“I learnt that people really want good
change and have made effort to see it
happen. Now the people have understood
that it is not about the party but the
individuals contesting for office, so
they voted for the individuals based on
previous performance and competence
and not the party”
With the long drawn-out elections
in Kano now concluded, Aspilos
Foundation is focused on building
its online platform to host reference
materials and to provide a virtual
community for citizens to engage with
public officials. Aspilos Foundation
is also planning to host the first in a
series of town hall meetings. Townhall
participants will thereafter take the
lead in organizing and moderating
other townhall meetings to engage with
public officials while using a variety of
tools to promote active citizenship.
What the Citizen’s Platform has
demonstrated in Kano is that there
is a growing interest and enthusiasm
among young Nigerians for governance
at the grassroots level. When interested
youths are trained and given the
opportunity to network with their
peers, they become vital assets in the
development of their communities.
It is now up to the youths of Kano to
continue advocating for increased
youth participation with the tools made
available through the Citizen’s Platform
project. The Aspilos Foundation is
looking to replicate this project in other
states of the federation.
CROSSROADS | April/May 2019
13