One Voice

1. One Voice Organizing Orile-Iganmu Community

2. What is Power? • The mental, moral or physical power to act • Power is dichotomous – can be divided into two parts that are contradictory • Power is zero-sum – a contest where the outcome produces both a winner and a loser

3. How is power obtained? • You either have more power or less power • If you have less power, the only way to get more is to take it from someone else • Real power cannot be given, but only taken - Land Use Act 1978, Electoral Act 2006, 1999 Constitution,

4. Truths about power • The power structure is fractured • Elites are obsessed with power and can take power from each other when they can – FGN v. Transcorp, FGN v. Virgin Nigeria • The very social organization of elite power make it a zeo-sum – Dangote v. Otedola, Akunyili v. NCC

5. Self-help model? • Orile community can get power by picking a single elite target, isolate it from other elites, personalize and polarize it • From this perspective, engaging in a self-help model of community development to show that Orile community is worthy of greater elite support will not work – it flies in the face of elite self-interest

6. Example • Community was shut out of urban renewal planning for their neighborhoods • Commissioned their own urban renewal plan • Used pressure tactics to get their plans to hold sway • Controlled the committee to approve all future plans for their neighborhood • Shifted control of urban planning from government to the neighborhood

7. Rules of Power • Power is not only what you have but what the opposition thinks you have • Power is not what the establishment has but what you think it has • The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself • Focus on the real target • Every positive has a negative; if a negative is pushed hard and deep enough, it will breakthrough into its counterside

8. The Polity • Nigeria has a pluralist polity (civil order), i.e. that distinct ethnic or cultural or religious groups can exist together in society • Orile people can form their own interests groups and access the polity like any other interest group • They may have to make more effort to be recognized initially, but once recognized, their interest s will be represented just like anyone else

9. Do Orile people have interests? • Orile people have no recognition and their interests are not represented. • Community organizing is bringing people together to actualize their common interests • Consequently there is no need for dramatic structural adjustment

10. How can Orile people succeed? • The system is good enough to protect and support the Orile people or have nots in organizing against those elites who have been taking unfair advantage • We can support government while attacking office holders • Political lobbying and voter mobilization tactics outpace the effectiveness of confrontation and protest

11. Human Nature • Modern society is created out of compromise between self-interested individuals, i.e. taking advantage of opportunities without regard for the consequences to others • Organizing people requires appealing to their self-interests • People become involved because they think there is something in it for themselves

12. Building commitment • Hopefully as Orile community becomes more organized, the process will bring out “innate altrusim and effective commitment” • But even that level of commitment is based on building victories through conflict with targets • The assumption of self-interest has the strongest continuing influence in organizing Orile community.

13. Avoiding ideology • Be wary of ideology – organizing people around abstract ideology leads to boredom at best and ideological disputs at worst • Ideology can become dogma • Building a pragmatic OIPA should come before promoting any ideology

14. The Role of Conflict • Since society is a compromise between competing self-interested individuals, conflict is inevitable • A pluralist polity is the means by which compromise is reached • The Nigerian constitution provides for a pluralist polity

15. Engaging in conflict • Since Orile people are at an initial disadvantage in that polity, citizens have to be prepared to engage in the level of conflict necessary for them to be included in the compromise process • The only way to overcome the inertia that exists in Orile community is to rub raw the resentments of the people in the community • Query: what do the people regard as a wrong, insult or injury in Orile community?

16. Preparing for conflicts • In order to engage in the level of activities necessary to win, “the rank and file” and the smaller leaders of OIPA have to be whipped into a fighting pitch • Engage small-scale conflicts withing Orile community against unscrupulous merchants, estate agents, and entrentched community organizations, to build victories and a sense of power • The job of OIPA is to get people to adopt a deligitimizing frame and break the power structure’s hold over them

17. Deorganizing Orile • Organizing is a very complex task requiring professional-level training and experience • Orile community must be “deorganized “ or reorganize d since many communities are organized for apathy • To achieve this indigenous leaders have to be located, trained and supported

18. Leadership development • New leaders have to be developed from outside the Orile community’s institutionally appointed leadership structure • The focus is not on those individuals, however, but on building a stronger OIPA and getting material concessions from elites • OIPA will emphasize building of indigenous organizers so that the organization will not decline

19. OIPA Organizing Process • The organizing process centers on identifying and confronting issues • Door knocking is the initial strategy for identifying issues • Query – what are the other strategies for identifying issues?

20. OIPA membership recruiment • Those issues then become the means of recruitment to OIPA • Then OIPA bills itself as the best, if not the only means of resolving those issues • People have issues which have to be identified, confronted and resolved through OIPA

21. OIPA mass meting • OIPA mass meeting is the means for framing issues and celebrating gains • Important to the process of building up to the mass meetings are cumulative victories • Begin with an easily winnable issue, and using the energy generated by that win to build to bigger and bigger issues

22. OIPA annual convention • The mass march, the public rally, the explicit confrontation, the celebrated win are all part of building a strong OIPA that can explicitly represent the community’s interest • The annual convention is the culmination of the OIPA organizing process

23. The annual convention • Emphasize the neglect of Orile community by government • Emphasize broken promises from government officials • Emphasize the victories of initial organizing • Emphasize the unity developing in Orile community

24. Organizing the convention • Use flyers and handbills to publicise OIPA mass meeting • Send text messages, word of mouth, banners, invitation cards, radio jingles • Register those attending the meeting • Record resolutions passed at the meeting on various issues framed

25. Continuity • If OIPA does not grow, it will die • New issues and continuous outreach are the only protection against OIPA dying • If there are no new people coming into OIPA, the shrinkage can be fatal