Re-examining State-Civil Society Relations amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigeria

Abstract

The paper examines state-civil society relations amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. While previous studies established a frosty state-civil society relations in Nigeria pre-COVID, this paper provides empirical evidence to the nature of this relationship amidst the COVID-19 context.  It adopts the descriptive and exploratory research designs, using primary data sourced via qualitative and quantitative methods. Findings show that, in most cases, there was a further shrunken civic space amidst the pandemic; nonetheless, there were some pockets of opening depending on the services offered. On the one hand, given the emergency situation of COVID-19, civil society worked more closely with the state and assisted it through citizen sensitisation, serving as a watchdog to the state, and the provision of emergency relief materials, etc. On the other hand, the civic space was more shrunken through passage of the Carmal law, the Twitter ban, and government restrictions on civil society’s attempt to assist in responding to the pandemic. The paper concludes that the civic space was further shrunk during the pandemic in Nigeria, and that going forward—post-COVID-19—the state must begin to see civil society organisations as partners in progress, while civil society must continue to be watchful of the undemocratic tendencies of the state beyond COVID-19.