The Nigerian Social Forum (NSF) is an open meeting place where groups and movements of civil society opposed to neo-liberalism and a Nigeria dominated by capital and liberal thinking congregate. It is a space that opposes any form of imperialism, unbridled capitalism, but engaged in building a Nigerian society centred on the human person. It is about Nigerians coming together to pursue their thinking, to debate ideas democratically, to formulate proposals, share their experiences freely and network for effective action. The NSF proposes to debate alternative means to building a Nigeria, which respects universal human rights and those of all men, women, girls and boys, grounded in democratic African and International systems and institutions at the service of social justice, equality and the sovereignty of peoples.
Background
With the disengagement of the military from power and the return of democracy, the Nigerian civil society and pro-democracy movements of the 90’s saw this as an end in itself and subsequently broke it ranks and disintegrated into fragments of civil society project focused organizing aimed at consolidating democracy. But subsequently democracy in Nigeria has continued without the needed social progress, it has failed in protecting and upholding the people’s socio economic and political rights. The failure in governance have continued unabated due to the absence of coherent and organized pressure groups in the country, as well as the emergence of a passive citizenry whose daily struggle for survival has left it incapable of responding to challenges of holding government accountable for meeting her needs and aspirations as a people. With the above scenario, the ruling class is engaged in a brazen exclusion of the people while building a bourgeoisie democracy intended to keep the majority of the Nigerian people perpetually poor.
But you would agree that society itself is dynamic providing the basic elements for change within itself, it provides the objective and subjective factors within which change occurs, the Nigeria of today is a huge objective condition, with its huge contradictions which can only be resolved by change; The widening gap between the poor and the rich, economic and political exclusion, endemic poverty, falling standards of education and health service provisioning and the total failure of governance. However, despite these huge contradictions the subjective condition necessary for change is still lacking; The lack of a broad based platform, virile movement or political party committed to social action and engagement for change.
Movement organizing is characterized by social dissatisfaction with the state of affairs and typified by the struggle for change; acting as enablers, catalyst and facilitators of action and change. For change to occur social movements must bring enough pressure to bear on the existing status-quo, with a semblance of unity in purpose. This is one of the key achievement and lesson of the global movement for change, grassroots movement across the world and the new wave of thinking in the development sector; the increasing realization of the role of mass groupings (coalitions, networks or umbrella bodies) as a force for change. The aim of such social forces would not be to emphasize projects, provide institutional support to organizations, roll out capacity building workshops, or provide services, but it is the control of resources, creation of wealth and target of the structural constraints that shape the day to day life of peoples. These movements must consistently posed the question of social ownership and democratic management of resources
This therefore goes a long way to underscore the NSF thinking in building a united front against the agents of neo-liberalism and globalization in its present form. The Nigerian organizing space has been greatly fragmented and for any significant change to take place there must be conscious efforts at harmonising the various strands of struggle in the country. Article 12 of the NSF Charter of Principles states explicitly ‘As a framework for the exchange of experiences, NSF encourages understanding and mutual recognition among its participant organizations and movements, and places special value on the exchange among them, particularly on all that society is building to centre economic activity and political action on meeting the needs of people and respecting nature, in the present and for future generations.
The NSF is therefore constantly and consistently building the bridge between thinking and action on a broad platform as a space for living alternatives that would have bearing on the socio-economic and political landscape of the country. It is also important that when there is a convergence of struggles there must be a deliberate attempt to understand the platform that provides such a united front; its plurality, diversity, autonomy and ideology. Only this way can the unity of struggles be achieved with the differences that are bound in the space working towards the enthronement of a people centered development paradigm. This engenders ownership of the process.
The Convergence Meeting
Therefore as a build-up to the Nigeria Social Forum Benin 2010, and an attempt to harmonise the various strands of struggle into one united front, the NSF is proposing a two day Movement Convergence Meeting with the broad goal of “Building and engendering ownership of the NSF by social movements in Nigeria’
Objectives
The meeting shall have the following objectives;
To build a common understanding of the forum space, its ideals, structure, challenges and prospects
Facilitate the emergence of a mobilisation platform in the country
Build a platform for uniting the various strands of struggles in Nigeria
Share experiences on social movement organizing.
Outcome
A shared understanding and engender the ownership of the NSF space by social movements in Nigeria
Initiate the process of building a virile and broad organising platform in the country
Target Group
The expected participants to the meeting would include but not limited to leaders of social movements, networks and coalitions across the country committed to change.
