Background
Since the emergence of
the Buhari administration, there is a feeling among Nigerians that the security
situation in the country is improving. Of course much work needs to be done to
bring life back to parts of the Northeastern region which has been destroyed by
violent insurgency since 2009.
The global terrorism
report 2015 suggested that Boko Haram is the deadliest insurgent group
in the world. According to the report, deaths as a result of insurgent attacks increased
by 300 percent with 7,512 fatalities, which is the highest in the world. Forty
percent of these attacks are in Borno State, Northeastern Nigeria. The attacks,
according to the global terrorism report, focus on markets and other public
places.
Borno State, one of the
most peaceful states in Nigeria in previous years, is now the shadow of its
former self. Widows, orphans and children have been displaced, some living in
countries neighboring Nigeria, and others dispersed in IDPs (Internally
Displaced Persons) camps.
What is happening in
Northeastern Nigeria is unusual, and under the current state of economic
turmoil in Nigeria and the rest of the world, unusual solutions need to be
explored in order to support the people affected by this tragedy.
That is why I would
like to suggest crowdsourcing as one of the innovative ways that would help in
mobilizing resources for the reconstruction of Northeastern Nigeria. I am
proposing crowdsourcing for several reasons. First is my confidence in the
Nigeria Muslim Forum UK (NMFUK) to lead the way, having contributed since the
beginning of the crisis in 2009. NMFUK has supported the affected communities
in Northeastern Nigeria through the provision of food, clothing and healthcare,
and has sponsored orphans in the region in order to give them hope to build a
future that is secure and credible.
NMFUK also is a
diaspora organization based in the UK where members have stable access to the
latest technology, including uninterrupted electricity supply and effective
internet connection which are needed to mobilise resources through
crowdsourcing. Being a charity organization registered in the UK, it has a mechanism
for ensuring transparency on how resources are utilized. This could help in
building confidence among donors to contribute resources through crowdsourcing.
The second reason is
that as an innovative means of financing, development experts have suggested
crowdsourcing as a way of reconstructing fragile states in the world. The third
reason is the credibility of the current leadership in Nigeria, and the desire
of the international community and donor agencies to help in alleviating this
humanitarian catastrophe.
Defining
Crowdsourcing
But what is
crowdsourcing? In simple words,
crowdsourcing is the ability to raise funds or mobilise resources through the
power of the crowd, using online platforms. According to a 2014 article on “The
Role of Crowdsourcing for Better Governance in Fragile State Contexts,” Maja
Bott, Björn-Sören Gigler, and Gregor Young suggested that the term was first
coined in 2006 by Jeff Howe in the Wired Magazine, and in their words:
“crowdsourcing is a collaborative exercise that enables a community to form and
to produce something together.”
Crowdsourcing is
driven by modern technology. Innovative firms like Amazon, Apple, Google and
social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube operate by empowering
the crowd to sustain the business for them. Another classical example of crowdsourcing
is the public encyclopedia known as Wikipedia, which relies solely on the power
of the crowd to keep it in business, but above all create the largest
encyclopedia in the world.
Today,
crowdsourcing has become one of the largest means of raising funds and other
resources for development interventions, entrepreneurship and knowledge
dissemination. According to Massolution Crowdfunding Report 2015, the
crowdsourcing industry has raised $34.4 billion in 2015.
To be successful
in raising funds using crowdsourcing, certain factors need to be taken into
consideration. Such factors have been discussed by Maja Bott, Björn-Sören
Gigler, and Gregor Young in their classical work on crowdsourcing for fragile
states. Such factors using Sharma’s model includes infrastructure, which refers
to the technology that will be used to mobilise resources. The availability of
mobile phones in developing countries according to them will make it easy to
have such technological infrastructure. The next is the vision of the
fundraisers, the human capital, which refers to dedicated individuals who will
work on the project, as well as the trust built among those engaged in the
project, together with the crowd that will be pulled to support the
fundraising.
Several groups
have used crowdsourcing to support people affected by natural or manmade
disaster in Haiti after the earthquake, as well as in Syria, Sudan and Libya. There
are several crowdsourcing platforms that are prominent like Indiegogo,
Fundrazr, GoFundme, etc.
Reconstruction
of Northeastern Nigeria
With the above
background in mind, there is a great opportunity to mobilise resources for the
reconstruction of Northeastern Nigeria using crowdsourcing. Of course NMFUK is
already using aspects of crowdsourcing to fund some of its projects, but the
2016 conference in Manchester is an opportunity to consolidate on that,
innovate new mechanisms and move ahead.
NMFUK should
take a positive advantage of Nigerians in diaspora by establishing partnership
with other diaspora organisations to create a crowdsourcing platform that will
be used to support areas affected by the insurgency. This is on the short term,
and for the long term work with other Nigerians to help any part of the country
that is suffering from one form of fragility or the other.
Statistics about
Nigerians in the diaspora and their specializations suggests that we are not
fully exploiting our strength for the benefit of the country.
According to the
African Diaspora Statistics Report 2013, in the United States alone there are 2
million Nigerians living in the country, out of which 20,000 are medical
doctors and 10,000 are academics teaching in various higher institutions. The
African Diaspora Statistics Report added that if “we
were to add the number of Nigerian doctors in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States,
Europe, Australia and those in other African countries, the figure would be
close to 30,000.” Quoting a World Bank report, the African diaspora statistics
added that African countries spend an estimated $5.6 billion in employing
foreign specialists, when Nigeria alone has enough skilled labour to provide
this service.
This does not
mean restricting this effort to Nigerians only, but the statistics above show
that Nigeria has a highly professional ‘crowd’ living in diaspora. NMFUK should
leverage on this by working with other diaspora organizations to support the
reconstruction of Northeastern Nigeria.
For this reasons
I would like to recommend the following: NMFUK should work with other Nigerian
diaspora organisations, the office of the Special Assistant to the President of
Nigeria on Diaspora and establish Nigerian Diaspora Crowdsourcing Fund (NDCF).
The fund should work to mobilise material and human resources to support the
reconstruction of Northeastern and other fragile states in Nigeria. The fund
should mobilise money, but most importantly the human capital available in the diaspora,
particularly medical personnel, university academics and entrepreneurs to
volunteer their service in developing the human capital of Northeastern
Nigeria. Whatever its imperfection, Nigeria had invested in us, it is time to
return the gesture.
Lack of human
capital development, excessive poverty, ignorance in the proper understanding
of religious texts have been identified among the major causes of the
insurgency in Northeastern Nigeria. You need human capital to develop human
capital. This is where Nigerians in diaspora can make a difference.
NMFUK should seek
partnership with donors like Dangote Foundation and Gates Foundation with a
view to tapping into their expertise, international network and desire to
invest in human capital development.
Finally, NMFUK
should mobilise its members with technological skills to start working on the
technological platform that could be used in the crowdsourcing campaign. I
conclude with a saying of Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be peace and blessings of
Allah): “The best of people are those that
bring most benefit to the rest of mankind."
12:03pm
14.06.1437
23.03.2016
