5 days ago
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Lawyer and human rights activist Malachy Ugwumadu has reacted to the impact of former US President Donald Trump’s executive order halting financial aid from USAID to various countries, including Nigeria, which has affected numerous NGOs and civil society organisations.
Addressing the funding crisis in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Monday, Ugwumadu highlighted how financial dependency has weakened many frontline human rights and pro-democracy movements in Nigeria.
He said, “Most of the crisis that the civil societies have had, for which reason you will hardly hear, some of those frontline human rights, pro-democracy movements in this country has to do with funding. Those of us who managed to survive were people who were not just creative enough to look inward, but were prepared to put on the line resources that will stabilise the organisation before those fundings came if they ever did.”
Using an analogy, he questioned the long-term viability of reliance on foreign aid, saying, “In every ramification, you could think of a human being, your own child, and say how best do I raise this one? Is it by orientating him or her to know and believe that the way to survival is to expect arms, aids from all corners, or to train him and fortify him and get him prepared to be able to sustain his or herself? I think the answer should be the latter, and that is what Nigeria has not had, which is why we are facing what we are facing today.”
Ugwumadu also addressed the broader implications of Trump’s foreign policy shifts, acknowledging that while the former US president had a mandate to prioritise American interests, the global effects of his policies remain uncertain.
“The entire disruptive tendencies of Trump’s policy resonating in foreign countries, I don’t know how it’s panning out out there, but I’d like to believe that these were the things that the Americans expected on the base of which they gave their mandate to Donald Trump, to parlour the affairs of the United States in the next four years. What I’m not too sure about is how the far reaching policies of Donald Trump is impacting on the world in relation to very clear programmes of the United States to guarantee stability through certain mechanisms and activities, including the foreign aids, you know, all around the world.
“When you guarantee health for instance, there’s a measure of improved human conditions that secure not only a healthy being, but a productive being, and thereby, reducing strife in the society. Well, you could see that the Nigerian government is already responding by corresponding policies. Efforts are being made to retain some of the workers who may be affected and reintegrate them into the system. That is as it relates to health. There are other aspects of USAID assistance in agriculture, in education, of course in health, and even in infrastructure. So, by and large, it is the disruption that has been occasioned by the emergence of Donald Trump, and the world is woken up to it and everybody is adjusting,” he said.
On the need for Nigeria to break free from dependency on foreign aid, Ugwumadu argued that continuous reliance on external support weakens the country’s global standing as he said, “There is no alternative to self-sufficiency. Even in terms of your self-worth, to what extent would you be taken seriously if you are perpetually waiting for handouts? If you continue in that trajectory, you will even foreclose the creative imaginative tendency that God Almighty has vested on every person. You’ll close yours while people will continue to develop theirs and give you peanuts.”
“Until we begin to stand up to some of these institutions and governments around the world, for that long, we will be taken for granted. Only recently we were told about how the Canadian Embassy denied the Chief of Defence Staff Visa. Even if that was an inadvertence, you could see the level at which they can deal with us. For me, that was also a statement on the state of our security, because if, for any reason, our Chief of Defence Staff needed to act and move in a way to actualise part of the duties of the office and you have these kind of hiccups, not that they were not told or they are not aware, it is that they can do I so that we react as we are reacting now. All of those impacts to ignoring self sufficiency as you are talking. 2003 till now, you are talking of a period within which we would have been replicating those kinds of capacities and energies that were conceived when those assistance were given,” he added.
When asked what the Nigerian government should do to help NGOs who have been hit by the stop of USAID funding, Ugwumadu said, “It starts with the gap created by government to deal with the exigencies of governance. And when they fail, it throws up these civil society bodies. So, what the government can do is what I hear they have started doing. You need to smell the coffee, bite the bullet, face the reality, understand that these fundings are no longer available. Budgets should be adjusted this time around. There are supplementary budgets, and I hear that some efforts are already being made in that direction. The issue is are we able to cope, because these fundings were covering huge aspects of our lives. But I know that in very many respects, our people will wake up, at least, to become conscious that this is not how to live.”
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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