Hello Enabler,

Eid-Mubarak for those who celebrated!

It’s mid-month and we’re sorry this is a bit late. We’ll recap what we did in May and the first half of June, and share opportunities to join us in creating positive change. It seems May brought us out of our shells to explore our creative side more, and we’ve continued in June!

Enjoy the read!

Nigeria International Book Fair (NIBF), 2024

We were a part of the 23^rd Nigeria International Book Fair, which took place between May 8 and 10. During the three-day book fair, a series of panel sessions were organised as side events, one of which was titled "Addressing the Brain Drain Crisis in Nigeria" and featured our Executive Director, ‘Yemi Adamolekun, as a panellist. This panel was part of the 2^nd Annual Tertiary Education Summit.

At the fair, we exhibited our book - Footprints: Past. Present. Future, our OOTC passports and other merchandise.

You can get a copy of Footprints here and access our other resources here.

OOTC Radio

In May and the first two weeks of June, our #OfficeOfTheCitizen radio program on Sparkling FM Calabar focused on 'Decoding Democracy,' especially because the 29^th of May, commemorated 25 years since Nigeria’s return to democracy. We covered topics such as; the principles of democratic governance, ensuring free speech in a democracy, ensuring grassroots democracy in Nigeria, and finally, free and fair elections in a democracy.

Research and Infographics

In May, we published an infographic on ex-governors pensions. It revealed that Abia, Imo, Kwara, Taraba and Zamfara states have repealed laws granting life pensions to former governors and deputy governors. This makes us just 5 of the 36 states in Nigeria!

These laws place a significant financial burden on state resources, even during harsh economic times, benefiting a privileged few at the expense of the general public.

Thursday Talks 

We took our monthly Thursday Talks to a higher level in May as we screened the movie "Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti" in partnership with Silverbird Cinemas. After the movie, Abosede George-Ogan, the Executive Director of WILAN Global moderated a conversation with Seun Kuti (her grandson), Wemimo Adewunmi of WARDC (a women’s rights advocate & mobiliser), and two UNILAG student activists - Tolulope Hicks and Toluwalope Eyikogbe David.  This special edition also had a guest appearance by Bolanle Austin-Peters, the movie's director, who answered questions from the audience.

Additionally, the event provided an opportunity to advance our work by showcasing our online civic-tech platform, shineyoureye.org and we distributed OOTC passports to attendees. It was clear from this #ThursdayTalks edition that storytelling and positive role models are critical to inciting Nigerians to collectively & consistently engage government with knowledge.

BudgIT’s country director, Gabriel Okeowo, noted that, for him, “this was the best edition in all the years of #ThursdayTalks,” and we hope to get more feedback like this with future editions!

Democracy Day - June 12 Screenings

Not only are we excited about how the movie Funmilayo shows what is possible, we were also glad that our guests at May’s #ThursdayTalks shared that excitement. For Democracy Day, we decided to partner with BAP Productions, the movie owners and WARDC to screen the movie again, but this time in three cities - Abeokuta, Abuja & Lagos.

The screenings were followed by engaging panel discussions featuring renowned voices such as Seun Onigbinde - Global Director, BudgIT, Victoria Oladipo - Founder, LearnPolitics, Bukky Shonibare - Executive Director, Invictus Africa, Idara Michael, National Vice President, Southwest 1, JCI Nigeria, and Funmi Efuwape, Commissioner for Special Duties, Ogun State amongst others. These insightful panels explored how to embody Funmilayo's activist spirit and drive positive change in modern-day Nigeria.

We hope to make the move to secondary schools and universities as part of our civic engagement activities in H2 2024, but we need your support! Can we count on you? We’ll need partnerships, speakers and money. Will you partner with us? 

#myLGA

We have established new partnerships with the Dr. Margaret Teens Foundation in Abia State and Justice Development and Peace Caritas (JDPC) Nnewi in Anambra State, as well as the recruitment of the Office of the Citizen Champions (OOTC) in both states. The champions, in turn, have started conducting advocacy visits to their respective local government secretariats to seek support for setting up OOTC Helpdesks in their local government secretariats.

We are closer to our goal which is to bridge the gap between citizens and their local governments via advocacy and education. The #myLGA project is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Conclusion

There you have it Enabler! You are all caught up with highlights of our activities from May to mid-June. As the month ends, things are slowing down as we catch our breath and plan for H2! We look forward to sharing our plans with you in the July Newsletter.

Our donation platform has been inoperational for a while and we are working hard to fix the problem with our payment processor. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

In the meantime, you can send your donations manually - please see details below.

Till next time!