Kwara Must Change To CSO: Don’t Seat On The Fence, Join Politics Now

A leading Pro-Democracy group in Kwara State, Kwara Must Change has called on all civil society organizations in Nigeria to transform into Pro-Democracy groups and join the political process instead of asking others to do what they are not willing to do.

The group stated that democracy is all about political participation and the concept of non-partisanship is alien to democratic practice.

In a statement by the Convener of Kwara Must Change, Abdulrazaq Hamzat, the group explained that democracy is about bringing all heads together to find solutions to societal problems and being none partisan amounts to confusion or ignorance of what democracy really entails.

According to Hamzat, political participation is the only real process to good governance in every democratic dispensation.

Anything outside of participation in democracy will amount to the willful ignorance of democratic practices, Hamzat said.

“World over, there’s nothing like non-partisanship in democracy, every single member of the society is expected to participate in the political process to contribute to the development, not just wait for the outcome and then start complaining”

Hamzat explained that, in a democracy, nobody can arrogate to themselves, an authority not conferred on them by the people and the only means by which a people can confer authority on any individual or group is through political participation.

“A non-partisan entity cannot usurp political authority given to elected individuals no matter how poor those individuals are, all the entity can do is to speak and continue to speak”

According to Hamzat, only those, who have received people’s mandate to represent them can effect positive change, noting that all others will only be spectators in the decision-making process.

“Joining the political process will ensure that more quality hands are within the system to access first-hand information that would aide the process of transforming our society for the better,” he said.

Hamzat explained that activism will make one informed as well as make one be arrogantly deviant, while politics will make one detailed and co-operatively humble, adding that, if one combines both qualities excellently, one will become the greatest tool for governance transformation and learn the right approach to make the right impact.

“We need capable and passionate individuals in political and public space across the board to move the country forward, but this is not the case at the moment”.

“But unless those capable and passionate heads are in the political system, the outcome will always be terrible”

Hamzat concluded that politics is organization, politics is planning, politics is dialogue, politics is persuasion, politics is strategy, politics is administration, politics is money, politics is generosity, politics is intelligence, politics is tactics and politics is mobilization.

And instead of denigrating politicians who are equipped with these skills, members of civil society organizations need to join the political process to acquire these skills and utilize same to make impacts from within the system.