On The New CAMA Adendum -By Eberechukwu Perez Okonkwo

My attention has been drawn to an article by one Florence Ozor on how the fears of the amendment are unfounded given that it is the court that has the final authority to make the order. Section 839 is not in dispute about that.

I have been constrained to do the following addendum because the article has focused on the law without an understanding of regulatory governance and the huge loss of opportunity to advance transparency that this Act represents despite its pretenses to that. In truth, as I have stated earlier, the act goes for authority and control rather that transparency and accountability. It will take a keen eye and an understanding of the mischief rule to understand that rather than score a goal, that Act just continues to hit the bar.

MY ADDENDUM

Please realize that the amendment of this act was a rare opportunity that may not present itself again in a long while. While there are gains from the Act in some areas, people who understand regulatory governance know that we have been unable to untie the complicated knot of regulation of incorporated trustees. The Obaje code of 2016 rather than address the real issue of instituting transparency and accountability by a well laid out system of mandatory disclosure requirements and penalties for failure, played to the gallery by attempting to regulate the internal rights of members of an association which is a matter of their governing instruments. We rather went for the needless roforofo of trying to fix the tenure of their trustees. Regulation wise for not for profits, its none of our business. Yes it’s none of the business of regulation. Regulation should focus on whether the trustees are carrying out their stated objects and whether they are applying their resources solely to their stated objects and not to private and personal objects. So that provision of over regulation was challenged and sensibly it was dropped, and wasted time and resources. The next attempt was the NGO bill which once again sought the same thing and was equally opposed.

This CAMA was our opportunity to major on the majors. What is the main issue with NGOs? What is the mischief we need to correct? The mischief is lack of transparency. Please show me the provisions that has provided for increased reporting and mandatory disclosure disclosure in the new Act? Show me how this Act by automatic operation increases transparency in the operations of NGOs?

The only time the issue of transparency will come up is on report by members or when the commission which has not given itself any avenue to see the accounting dashboard of these organisations, decides in its opinion( how it will come to that opinion is a matter for another day) that there is fraud or that the operations of the body should be looked into in the public interest. Of course there is no day that you open the anus of any living thing and you wont find some speckle of shit. So CAC and the government are not interested in any positive advancement of transparency, they just want a hold by which they can blackmail any organisation.

So what am I saying, we dont want people being transparent, we just want something we can use against people when they move against government wishes. This system is not alien to us, it is the core principles of Nigerias regulatory practice. If you continues in government good books you can continue your heist unabated. We dont want to stop corruption, we just want evidence of corruption to use to whip people into line, make them change their party from PDP to APC and forgive them their sins.

You can all testify how this cloak and dagger system has worked for us.

The article by the lady has focused on the law, but it is sorely lacking in any understanding of the psychology of regulatory governance.

I will be here in two years time to give a score card. It wont be different from the normal Nigerian scorecard.