The Nation Newspaper

Category: Lekan Otufodunrin

  • Industry- compliant graduates

    One of the expected responses I got to my last week’s piece on the need to stop teaching typing skills with typewriters in schools was from someone who sells the outdated machine I wrote about.

    He was alarmed that my view on the matter was capable of spoiling his business and had to call me to probably disabuse my mind against the continuous use of typewriters.

    However, by the time we ended the brief discussion on the issue, he agreed that it was a matter of time before he will stop getting patronage for the purchase and repair of the machines.

    Like I told him and he agreed, typewriters have no place in the present and future of processing and documentation of information. Notwithstanding the challenges of using computers, including lack of regular electricity supply, school authorities have no excuse to retain manual trying in the curriculum for secondary and technical school students.

    Just last week, the Lagos a State government announced plans to train  about one million students on technology coding under its Cope Lagos programme. If the Lagos State government aims to train students in coding on computer, while should typewriters still be a training tool in any secondary school.

    My concern again on this matter is the need for constant review of the curriculum for training students at all levels in the country. Authorities responsible for school curriculum must be conversant with changes in the society and reflect same in what students are taught if we really want them to match the exploits of their contemporaries globally.

    Giving the right atmosphere and resources to learn, our youths will excel like their counterparts elsewhere. Instead of sticking to old ways of doing things, our curriculum must be flexible and we must be ready to leap frog to join the race on the information super highway.

    For teachers to be able to meet up the demands of training the present generation of students and help them maximise their potentials, teachers and lecturers must also be willing to update their knowledge. The knowledge of yesteryears is not enough. The new definition of education for all is the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn.

    My first son once told me about one of their lecturers who usually boasts of teaching with the notes he wrote decades ago. The students were not impressed. They were able to prove to the lecturer the needed  to update his note when one of the students asked what period he was referring to as ‘recent times’ in decade-old note in 2013.

    I usually interact with Mass Communication students and I am shocked that some of the courses they are taking are not much different in content compared with what I learnt over thirty years ago. How are they expected to get employed in media houses when the changes in the industry are not well reflected in what they are taught?

    The need for constant gown and town interaction cannot be overemphasized if graduates of higher institutions are expected to be industry compliant.

  • No to typewriters in our schools!

    Why should secondary school students in 2016 be asked to buy a typewriter for whatever subject?

    This was the question I was forced to ask on my facebook timeline last Monday following a request by my son who is in a federal government school for a typewriter. He and his classmates have been asked to buy the old typing machine for Business Studies.

    I found it hard to understand why in the present, modern technology-driven world, young students who are digital natives and not immigrants like me should be asked to learn typing the way I did in 1982 at the Mass Communication department of University of Lagos with Olympia typewriters.

    As if to confirm how outdated the typewriter is, it was difficult to find one to buy since they are no longer produced. We had to settle for a used one which we were not sure was still good enough to learn with. Nobody produces typewriters again, yet the school curriculum for training our children in public schools still requires that they learn manual typing.

    If my son, like most of his classmates can use desktops, laptops and IPads better than I can, why take them back to the old age machine? My facebook post expectedly triggered a rage about how largely static the curriculum for teaching in our educational institutions are. Like one of those who responded to my post stated, it is a confirmation of the institutional deficiencies and decay in our educational system.

    If the students are supposed to become leaders of tomorrow like we claim, why we should stick to training them with yesterday’s technology in the present global village we live in. How are they supposed to compete with their peers locally and internationally when we are not ready to give them the benefit of what today’s technology makes possible?

    The argument that it is faster to learn typing with typewriters is contestable considering that there are touch-typing softwares which are more user-friendly. There are those who also noted that lack of electricity may also be a problem with using computers in some schools.

    My answer is that what happens when eventually the typewriters are no longer available to buy since they are no longer produced? There is no good excuse to remain analogue in a digital age.

    Except in very insignificant cases, nobody uses typewriter again for any serious task and we cannot afford to stick to the old ways of doing things when there are better options.

    Those in charge of the curriculum and the teachers should wake up to constantly ensure that the school curriculum takes into cognisance present day realities.

    There is no point training students with outdated curriculum if our goal is to give them functional education.

    Another response aptly captures what has become of the typewriter, Olympia has fallen. There is no point raising a dead horse.

  • Wanted: Better medical care

    About a year ago, after being on admission in a federal hospital that’s supposed to be one of the best public health institutions in the country, I wrote a four-part column on my experience.

    While I was grateful to God and the hospital for being discharged alive, unlike some other patients, I couldn’t resist sharing my experience for the benefit of whoever may have cause to be admitted there and draw the attention of the management and government to the need to improve on the services rendered.

    Considering the life and death nature of being on admission, I was very concerned about some of the lapses I noticed and lack of basic facilities needed to enhance the level of healthcare provided in the hospital. I could have written a lot more, but I didn’t want to create the wrong impression that there was nothing good about the hospital.

    Of course the hospital staffers were doing a lot to attend to the influx of patients, but with limited resources, they couldn’t do as much as they should do. How, for example, like I noted, would two nurses be able to cater for over twenty patients overnight? The inability of doctors to give enough attention to patients was obviously not their fault, but the large number of those they needed to attend to.

    To see such shortcomings that may have been responsible for some of the deaths recorded in the hospital and not write about them would have been insensitive on my part to the plight of many voiceless Nigerians not getting the right medical care they deserve.

    That was why I was shocked, though not surprised, to hear of the displeasure of the head of the institution about my carefully-worded true account of my experience. Obviously, his anger would have been that I exposed some of the inadequacies in the hospitals, but, for me, the life of the hundreds of patients seeking treatment in the institution is more precious than the cover up he would have preferred.

    There is no point creating the false impression about the medical services that do not exist. If the institution requires more funding and resources, the government needs to know from the patients if the staffers are unable to say so.

    I was told that the medical director claimed he has checked my medical records and I would soon be back at the mercy of the hospital. My response was that he should be told that he is not God. Like he should know, Doctors only care, it is God who heals.

    One year after, I am alive by God’s grace. I have been going for check-ups in the hospital and there is still need for improvement in the services rendered.

    The medial record-keeping system in the hospital is so disorganised that cases of missing files are not unusual.

    Instead of getting angry like I should have been last Thursday when my file could not be found and I had to get another appointment when, hopefully, it would have been found, I took pity on the staffers that have to check through piles of files where they are kept. It would be a miracle if some files don’t get missing once in a while given the filing system still in use in the hospital.

    I was told I should have photocopied my case notes to prevent losing my records as it may happen in this instance. Too bad I assumed that the records should be safe and well-kept considering the importance of the lifesaving information contained, but this is the sad situation I have found myself.

    The health of the citizens is too important for the government not to allocate adequate funds for it. The high cost of medicare in local private and foreign hospitals is not affordable for most Nigerians.

  • Sacked? Don’t be stuck

    Sacked? Don’t be stuck

    With the global economic recession and technological disruption in professional practices, news of retrenchment, downsizing, rightsizing and whatever employers decide to call it, is very common these days.

    That many employees are going to be separated from their jobs sooner or later is so certain giving the economic challenges companies are facing to sustain their operations. What employees are not sure of is when the inevitable decision will be taken and they will be asked to leave.

    I was therefore not surprised when I heard of the news of the termination of the contracts of the employees of Royal Media Services (RMS), Kenya, involving a colleague, Terryanne Chebet, Citizen TV news anchor. The massive termination of appointments according to the company was due to the changes witnessed in the broadcasting industry.

    Just some weeks back, I, Terryanne and other journalists from Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya participating in the ALI Media fellowship sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies were in New York discussing the future of the media in Africa.

    It is really sad that a brilliant and experienced broadcaster who has just completed an international media fellowship will suddenly have her contract terminated for whatever reason. Just when the company and station’s audience should be benefiting from what she must have learnt from the fellowship, she has been asked to leave.

    Terryanne is one of many employees worldwide who have been excused from the job they have diligently done for years due to the various disruptions the global economy is going through. Under the present circumstance, it doesn’t matter how good some workers are. They simply have to go to keep their company afloat. In some dire situations, some companies have had to shut down and send everyone packing without adequate severance package.

    However, what gladdens my heart in Terryanne’s case, which is what I once wrote about in this column, is her ability to quickly recover from the shock of her sudden exit. With the present global recession, every employee must not to be taken by surprise when the inevitable happens. They must be ready to move on with their careers in whatever way they can instead of getting stuck.

    Within days of leaving her former place of work, she got an opportunity to speak to entrepreneurs at Cytonn Foundation training as founder of Keyara Organics, a company started in 2014.

    She spoke on personal branding and its essence in entrepreneurship at the programme organised by one of the biggest investment companies in Kenya. Terryanne’s Instagram’s post on the speaking opportunity captures the kind of attitude everyone who suddenly finds himself or herself out of paid employment.

    “So refreshing to jump onto this train. I’m learning with great humility, that God does open other doors and I must be bold enough to find and knock on them. If you are where I am, don’t stay down… find a light and run towards it,” she wrote.

    Like another Kenyan colleague said, when you find yourself at the cliff of life, like when you suddenly lose your job, you can either choose to fly or fall. The secret of surviving the present uncertain economic times is to be prepared for the worst case scenario – sack your employer or be prepared to be sacked.

  • Tribute: A father like no other

    With my years of being a journalist, I have always believed that writing about anything can’t be difficult for me. So I thought until recently when I had to write the final tribute to my late father, Chief Adebisi Japheth Otufodunrin, who was buried on October 14 in our village, Imagbon, Ogun State.

    It was my task to collate the tributes by my siblings, family members and other well wishers. I got virtually everyone to write theirs, but each time I tried to write mine, I could not easily come up with the right words to capture what our father meant to me and my siblings.

    I was not worried about overstating his accomplishments, but I was concerned about understating his legacies, virtues and all he did in his own little way to leave an imprint on the sand of times.

    Perhaps the writer’s block I was experiencing in writing the tribute was due to the fact that my father meant so much to me that I was finding it difficult to accept that he is indeed no more.

    With the deadline for submitting the content for the burial programme staring me in the face, I finally managed to write what I considered just a passage tribute.

    “Our consolation has been the sacrificial life you lived not only for us, your family, relatives and friends, but virtually everyone you had the opportunity of being with,” I stated.

    Talk of a man of the people who was accommodating to all he could provide for in any way he could. Not only did he take adequate care of his nuclear and extended family, beneficiaries of his benevolence are too numerous to recount.

    Like one of my uncles recounted at the wake keep, my father’s generosity was not due to any wealth that could be ascribed to him, but his willingness to help as many people as possible.

    “He doesn’t have more than one house, but he has helped many who have built mansions. That is the kind of person my brother is,” Pastor Yomi Odubote said.

    I also noted in my tribute that my siblings and I are what we are today by the grace of God and the crucial role my father played at every stage of our development. “We are grateful and proud of you being a father like no other. Your commitment particularly to our education remains a legacy we will always cherish,” I added.

    Though my father did not make it to a higher institution, he insisted that all his children must have university education, and eleven out of twelve of us did.

    But for him, I and some of my siblings would have opted for lesser education, but he would have none of that.

    He said he wanted a Dr Otufodunrin and he got one of us to become a medical doctor. As he would always say, the greatest legacy a father can leave for his children is get them educated to the highest level they can. We are all taking after our father, producing another generation of well-educated, creative and innovative Otufodunrin linage.

    I concluded my tribute with the following two paragraphs:

    “The peace, unity and love that prevail in our immediate and extended families are a tribute to the exemplary leadership, support and fatherly care you provided in your lifetime.

    “We will miss you in too many ways we can express. We will miss your calls, advice, suggestions, encouragement and many more. I will miss being asked why I didn’t write my weekly column whenever I failed to do so.

    “We love you but God loves you more. Sleep well our dear father, sleep well Iba Lekan.”

    My sincere appreciation for all the best wishes, prayers and support for our father’s burial. We will all live to survive our aged ones.

    This piece is being repeated because of technical hitch in the same piece last week

  • Their stories, our stories

    I may be wrong, but I get the impression that some journalists think they are doing non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and agencies a favour when they report their activities. NGOs usually have to try hard to get journalists interested in issues they are advocating, which are not sometimes major areas of coverage for the media. They have to build in training programmes, awards and grants into their advocacy plans which some journalists still do not take as seriously as they should.

    Some NGOs have been accused of using media publications and broadcasts to get grants which are not utilised for the purpose they are meant. While it may be true that some NGOs may not be as honest and committed to the causes they claim to be advocating, what cannot be denied is that stories about their areas of focus are matters that deserve as much coverage as they can get in the interest of their target audience or the general public.

    The NGOs may be the advocates of the causes they promote, but journalists must also see beyond writing ‘their stories’. Journalists should regard their stories as ‘our own stories’. As members of the public, journalists can benefit from the outcome of the campaigns directly or indirectly. This fact was apparent at a media discussion forum on reporting about cancer in Nigeria I participated in sometime ago. It turned out that virtually every journalist at the meeting had either had a direct or indirect experience about cancer-related treatment.

    A health correspondent told a pathetic story of how her mother died of cancer due to lack of adequate care while another recalled that her mother could have been saved if she had been diagnosed earlier when she sought treatment. I remember a senior journalist bursting into tears in Kaduna some years ago after listening to a testimony of a lawyer living with HIV. “I regret that my sister died a cheap death when she tested HIV positive. If only I had known that people who test positive to HIV can still live with it and achieve their professional goals like the lawyer speaking to us, I would not have allowed my sister to return to the village to die,” the journalist lamented.

    If the NGOs succeed in getting the government or authorities concerned through media reporting to provide adequate facilities for treatment of any disease for example, they can get the credit along with others working on the issue. Journalists should not feel used for a cause which they, their relatives and other members of the public can benefit from. The stories journalists write and broadcast for advocacy groups are not only their stories, but also our own stories as well. We can choose to focus on the issues NGOs are advocating and not their organisations. What is more important is that the public good is served through their stories and our stories.

    My advice to NGOs and other organisations that need the support of the media has, however, been that media coverage should not be taken for granted. There are many competing reports for publication with limited space to contend with.

    There is a lot involved in deciding what gets published and it should not always be assumed that journalists are not supportive of some campaigns when the reports are not published.

    What is required is a synergy of mutual understanding and not mutual distrust which still plays out in many instances.

    • Excerpts from my new book, The journalist you ought to be

  • Prayer for our nation

    In my early years of travelling out of country, I never ceased to be amazed about the level of our underdevelopment compared with that of many other countries. I could understand that of the developed nations, but not that of many developing countries on the continent and some others who we have no basis not being better than.

    I remember always writing about my experiences and lamenting how we were not making enough progress to match our status as a supposed giant of Africa, but I have since stopped, to save myself the agony of the depressing comparisons.

    Though I no longer write about our shameful lack of basic infrastructures, my secret prayer has always been that the present and future governments in the country will make up for the past mismanagement of our resources by implementing projects that will make our country the desired destination on the continent.

    On a recent trip to Rwanda and stopover in Qatar, I was again reminded of our infrastructural deficiencies in terms of power supply and good airport. During a week stay in Rwanda, a country which about 12 years ago experienced genocide that left the country in shambles, I and some Nigerian colleagues looked out endlessly for generators. Electricity supply did not go off for a minute.

    We travelled seamlessly from Kigali the capital to Lake Kivu on the border with Democratic Republic of Congo on a long winding road without having to contend with pot holes. The road had street light.

    If a small country like Rwanda, without oil revenue like ours, could get its acts right and make itself a major tourist destination, why can’t we do much more. Why should Rwanda have a national airline and we don’t have one?

    For a trip to the United States, we had to fly Qatar Air which meant a stopover in Doha, the country’s capital. The airport is undoubtedly world class with none of our airports comparable to it.

    Qatar is an oil-producing country like Nigeria. From what I could see of the small country, oil is indeed a blessing not a curse like ours.

    I can go on lamenting the bad fate that has befallen us over the years but the independence anniversary marked yesterday is yet another opportunity to pray for a better future for our country. There is a lot to pray for about our country.

    We sure need good leaders that can take us to our desired promised land.

    More than ever before, our economy is troubled and we need solutions that can take us out of the recession we have found ourselves.

    The level of insecurity in the country is alarming with kidnappers and other criminals having a field day.

    The second stanza of our national anthem is a very apt prayer for all to always sincerely recite and take necessary steps to accomplish.

    Oh God of creation, direct our noble cause

    Guide our leaders right

    Help our youth the truth to know

    In love and honesty to grow

    And living just and true

    Great lofty heights attain

    To build a nation where peace and justice                              shall reign.

    Yes we must pray, but prayer without work, according to the scripture, is death. Prayers in the words of Bishop David Oyedepo will not replace planning.

    The choice is ours.

  • Avoidable plagiarism

    For a government trying hard to convince its supporters and opponents about its “change” agenda, the insertion of two paragraphs from the United States President Barrack Obama’s 2008 victory speech in President Muhammadu’s Buhari’s September 8 address at the launch of the “Change Begins with Me’’ campaign is an unfortunate development.

    To err is human, but an error of this kind can arm critics who are not interested in focusing on the message of change. But the slip as noted by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in his press statement, should have been avoided.

    Notwithstanding the massive support that brought the federal government to power, it must not lose sight of the fact that there are enough ‘wailers’, apologies to Femi Adesina, and even disappointed supporters who will not spare any wrong doing, however minor.

    The culprit of the embarrassing insertion in President Buhari’s speech should have known that with the Internet, virtually every claim can be cross-checked, while similarities in statements or outright plagiarism can easily be found out. All you need to do is to put any suspicious paragraph in a search engine and the original source will show up.

    Recently, Malania, wife of the US Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, was accused of plagiarising a speech by Obama’s wife, Michelle. It was hard for the Trump’s team to deny the accusation when the two speeches were aired.

    If any speech writer finds any quote irresistible and it cannot be completely rewritten, what should have been done is to attribute it to the original owner. For me, there is nothing wrong in giving credit to another author. It confirms how widely you have read and your readiness not to take credit for what is not yours.

    Sometimes after several readings, it is possible to forget that a particular quote is from another writer. But at the level of a presidential speech in a politically-charged situation like we have in the country, such an error can be very costly as the present instance has turned out.

    Good enough, the Presidency has admitted its fault and promised to take appropriate disciplinary measures to prevent a recurrence. There should be no room for any overzealous staff, like the one said to have been responsible for the insertion, to write any speech which should not be subjected to critical scrutiny.

    Beyond the Presidency, there is a major lesson for all to learn from the incident.

    While the faceless presidential speech writer can be the plagiarism offender for the moment, he or she is not the first and will definitely not be the last. Plagiarism is not new to us. Many, including university lecturers, have been found guilty in the past, while many others yet to be caught are currently engaged in the act.

    The Internet seems to have made it easy to plagiarise and unfortunately not many see any wrong with it. While plagiarism at the Presidency stands condemned, it should not be condoned at any level.

    Many students nowadays simply search on google and get write-ups by other persons which they submit as their own. There are cases of complete academic projects edited minimally and submitted to earn degrees.

    There are also many websites and blogs that violate the copyrights of original content owners with impunity. They profit from contents they didn’t pay for to produce. It is not enough to copy stories and credit the source without the permission of the owners in some cases.

    These unethical practices will continue as long as offenders are not named and shamed. We must all learn to give credit to whom credit is due.

  • Zuckerberg’s visit: My takeaway

    In many ways, the visit to the country by Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is very instructive. There are many lessons to learn and steps that should be taken if the euphoria of the visit is not to becloud our sense of reasoning.

    The first time I heard of Co- creation Hub ( CcHUB) in Lagos, which was Zuckerberg’s first point of call on arrival in the country was a few years ago. I am not sure how many Nigerians know what the incubation centre is all about. Most residents of Yaba must have been shocked that such an internationally acknowledged centre exist in their neigblourhod without knowing much about its operations.

    For the owners of the Centre, the visit of one of the richest men in the world is a confirmation of the good work they have been doing without seeking unnecessary attention or recognition. They have proved that success or recognition in any endeavour is not a function of location but dedication and accomplishments.

    If you are good at whatever you do, you will be found out sooner or later. From being a local champion, you can be sure of getting global attention as it is the case with CcHUB.

    For the government, CcHUB, the ‘faceless’ developers and entrepreneurs that were the main reason for Zukerberg’s visit, confirm the abundant talents in the country which needs to be recognized and supported to maximise their potentials.

    CcHUB is a social innovation centre dedicated to accelerating the application of social capital and technology for economic prosperity. We need more of such centres for innovation and new thinking that can help reduce the high rate of unemployment in the country.

    More than ever before, the government must go beyound paying lip service to its commitment to technological advancement which is crucial to the development of any society.

    Education at all levels must accommodate present-day global trend of emphasis on use of new technologies. A conducive atmosphere must be provided to enable the developers and entrepreneurs Zukerberg met and many others do more than they are presently doing.

    Nigeria, as President Muhammadu Buhari stated while receiving Zuckerberg has always been identified as a country with great potentials for growth, especially with our youthful population, but the potentials must be converted to reality.

    Zuckerberg’s commendation for the energy and entrepreneurial spirit displayed by young Nigerians in all the ICT camps that he visited should be a challenge to other youths who are yet to master the use of new technologies or are presently using  it for fraudulent means.

    Notwithstanding the limitations that may be peculiar to our environment, technology has proved to be a leveler and made the world a truly a global village. Instead of being a major distraction for youths who can no longer do without their gadgets, the wide access to knowledge which the Internet provides should enhance learning and broaden their horizon.

    Before now, there have always been concern about imbalance in information flow between developed and underdeveloped nations, the Internet provides an equal opportunity for creating and sharing content.

    If we are not contented with the image being projected about our country, we must be ready to create and upload our own content. No one can tell our stories better than we can do. Zuckerberg and others have done well to provide the online platforms, it is up to us to use it to our advantage.

  • Who says there are jobs for young graduates?

    Who says there are jobs for young graduates?

    A media organisation recently advertised a vacancy to hire a young staff.

    Some days after the announcement, I asked the Managing Director of the company if he had received enough responses to the advert.

    His response was ” Just three so far and none suitable.”

    I was not really surprised that despite the large number of young graduates seeking media employment, the applications received were few and none of the three that applied was suitable, considering the requirements in the vacancy announcement.

    The requirements were supposed to be basic skills and experience media job seekers should have, but my experience in helping to recruit staff shows that, like a former minister was once quoted as saying, many applicants these days  are not employable.

    When media vacancy announcements include requirements like the three below, the applicants will definitely be few.

    • Mastery of grammar, spelling and punctuations which can be assessed based on the application letter.
    • Proficiency in digital journalism as well as active presence on social media which can be confirmed by checking the social media handles of the applicants.
    • Web-based materials written by applicants which must be included in the applications.

    I know a number of young and very bright graduates who may meet the above requirements, but many just don’t have what it takes to get hired by especially new companies that need ‘ready-made’ staff who can work with little or no supervision.

    I know some young graduates who have been changing jobs almost at will on the basis of their mastery of new media skills, while others are finding it difficult to convince employers to invite them for interviews.

    Vacancies are indeed not as many as they used to be considering the prevailing economic situation in the country and the changing media landscape, but those who have the required skills and competence have a better chance of getting jobs under the present circumstance.

    With the current high unemployment rate in the country, only the most qualified and competent can get employed when merit is the main consideration for employment.

    My advice to graduate job seekers is that they cannot afford to sit back waiting for employment when they don’t have enough proof of their editorial capabilities apart from their certificates.

    There are enough online platforms to demonstrate their skills, like having blogs, being professionally active on social media and publishing content.

    In the absence of jobs going round the army of job seekers, graduates should be ready to create new jobs that do not exist. More than ever before, graduates have to be innovative and come up with new ideas that can guarantee them employment in existing companies or the ones they can come up with.

    Graduates should have a good knowledge of the industry and companies they want to work in instead of asking for ‘any job’ available when they are seeking employment.

    I know what it takes to search for jobs for long after completing the national youth service. It took me almost a year to get my desired kind of job in 1986, 30 years ago.

    Jobs have always been difficult to get, but the competition has become stiffer. When the going gets tough, only the tough can get going.