New Tactics in Nigeria - Using Radio: An Interview with Rebecca Sako-John

Ms. Rebecca Sako-John is the Executive Director of the League of Democratic Women in Nigeria (LEADS NIGERIA). She also provides pro bono legal services to women and other victims of human rights violations. Her accomplishments include initiating community watchdog and mobilization units for human rights in local communities, initiating a women’s empowerment program for enduring democracy, participating in election monitoring and public hearings on a review of the Constitution, and defending Nigeria’s 4th and 5th CEDAW Implementation report before the UN. As a Humphrey Fellow, Sako-John plans to study regional and international systems for promoting human rights, gender and the law, international organizations and multinational institutions, transitional justice, and how HIV/AIDS presents challenges to global health and justice.

How have New Tactics thinking, materials and/or tools assisted you in your work, and what your organization is doing? Or in How has it helped to move your work forward?

We are more focused when we have an issue at hand and when we need to sit down and plan a project. We now think strategically and tactically on what to do, we look at the issues, and concentrate on what is going to help us achieve success.

Which tactic was particularly helpful?

The one that dealt with mapping (see Using_the_tactical_map_WDA.pdf). We sat down and started to think about how we do the mapping of issues. We started to have a strategy for how we implement projects.

We now have a lot of materials now to use that we can see how to adapt to our own situation. We also have the opportunity to share with our colleagues. We do a lot of work with other people. We always look at the books, notebooks, and the strategies to see if they are relevant to our own goals.

Did the New Tactics grant provide support for any new directions or new tactics your organization wouldn’t otherwise have carried out? 

We now share information about new tactics with other resources and other people in the field who didn’t know about new tactics. It gave use the opportunity to share information about the notebooks and the web site. Some people who were in the program had not worked with us so we were able to establish alliances and to work out how to achieve shared goals.

Can you talk about your use of electronic media (specifically radio for this grant) and how it furthered your ability to spread the message about human rights in Nigeria? How have you been able to assess the impact?

We decided to use the radio because it has the widest reach – it reaches a number of people in order to share information about human rights and reach out to them. We also provided information about the new tactics program.  A lot of people in the target area of northern Nigeria listen to the radio.  The particular program we chose, it is a program a lot of people listen to. There is a lot of opportunity to call in and give feedback. 

We did not get a lot of feedback from the phone calls but the phones were open but we didn’t get any calls. But we had people come into the office and other people come in – referred by someone who listened to the program and needed advice.  After the first episode was aired they wanted us to come back and be on the radio.  We are asked to come back on other radio programs including Woman-to-Woman program.  This is the program where we talked about trafficking.

15 minutes on the radio is not very long to get a message across, how did you maximize the time, what were the key messages you were trying to convey?

We went over some of the key information that would provide basic information on the topic - i.e what are human rights, what are the ways by which you can enforce your rights, where can you receive advice or aid if you had a problem on the violation of your rights, what are the rights of women and children? Why is it necessary to protect their rights, how have others done in similar situations, what are the uses of networking and sharing of tactics/ information on human rights. 

The key messages were to get out that human rights must be respected and should be enforced. Another message was for human rights advocates to share information on what they were doing and how they could be reached.

How important is it to use multiple mediums: the consultation workshop gatherings, the printed hand-outs and radio to help people understand the need for human rights for women and children? Do they have any feedback on what methods are most effective in helping people to access resources to meet their human rights needs? For getting ideas about the New Tactics project about different ways in which people were implementing tactics to address human rights needs?

The electronic reaches out to more people but is expensive. For print, we printed a two-language version of our magazine. The magazine is also on the web site. 2000 magazines are distributed, 1000 in English, 1000 in Hausa, the most widely spoken and read language in the target area North West Nigeria. We have exchanged a lot of information via our website http://www.leadsnigeria.org but people do not use the online feedback forms very much.

Is there potential in the future to gain more radio time and get people to call in to discuss how some of the New Tactics examples might be of use in the issue of Nigerian human rights abuses?

Yes, I think so; we had an agreement with the radio station that after the paid time, we would be able to do more programs. There are prospects there to get experts on particular issues to come and discuss some of the issues that people are facing.

How can the new tactics thinking and materials that you’ve been able to translate and the other materials available help you with your future goals?

After the conference in 2005, we had agreed to exchange information. We wanted to get as many human rights activist that were in the room involved in the program.  We want to get it on a national scale.  We wanted to use new tactics on a smaller scale but acknowledging how this affects work being done on a larger scale.

What are some of the issues you might be facing where new tactics will help?

Major issues that are coming forward are how people can enforce their rights.  How human rights have expanded.  Give people information about their rights. Try to get information out about how they can get help, access to a paralegal, etc. There are a lot of issues are coming up, we will be pushing for a lot reforms when the elections occur next year.

What area of study are work will you be pursuing as a Humphrey fellow? In what ways are you hoping the experience will help you when you return to LEADS in Nigeria?

As a Humphrey Fellow in Law and Development, I am particularly interested in women’s rights, and issues having to do with gender and public policy information and implementation, We have a lot of policies, a lot of laws that are just lying there and not being implemented and we need some of them to be reviewed which is a big problem in Nigeria. I am hoping gain more skills on how to implement them. During the Humphrey year, we have a lot of seminars. We will have a presentation on our country so there is the opportunity to exchange information and ideas. I am also interested in looking at human rights on the international level.