Joko Okupe, founder of Minshift, an organisation dedicated to the pursuit of good governance, spoke with reporters on Lgos on insecurity, national unity and leadership recruitment. EMMANUEL OLADESU was there
What is the solution to insecurity in Nigeria?
It is a very complex situation to analyze. But, my opinion is that the insecurity that we have in the nation now is as a result of insincerity of leadership. Insincerity of leadership in relaying matters exactly as they are. There is insincerity of leadership in confessing their weaknesses and limitations. Insincerity of leadership in opening up in openness to the citizens. And insincerity of leadership in saying one thing and doing exactly another. If we look at a lot of these things that I’ve outlined now, they give birth to so many ugly children. When we talk about insecurity, we need to have a little bit of a shift because we are looking at security and insecurity in terms of, may be, lives and properties. The default thinking that anybody would have is that government needs to protect us with arms, with ammunitions, with security apparatus as it were. But as we speak now, as a nation, there are many insecure areas of our life that perhaps, nobody is paying attention to.
What about food insecurity? What about insecurity of the infrastructure that we live in? In the last couple of years we’ve had more states in the nation getting flooded like we never used to have them before. Erosion has eaten a lot of our Eastern States. People’s houses are collapsing right under them. Lives are being lost. What about insecurity to our lives even from the lack of proper handling of the issue of counterfeiting and adulteration in Nigeria – where many Nigerians are using fake drugs, eating poisoned foods. You hear of houses collapsing in some parts of the country. Why are the houses collapsing? Probably, because, some of the building materials that have been used to build these houses were inferior in quality. We can go on and on! Now between us, guns and bullets cannot free us from these insecurities that we’ve spoken about. Nobody seems to be looking at them.
Why has insecurity persisted?
Now, why is there so much insecurity? Some of the people that are engaged in fomenting these troubles are involved basically because they are not gainfully engaged. How did we get to a point where a bulk of the population like that is not gainfully engaged? Something went wrong somewhere! When we look at this insecurity, I opine simply that it is the insincerity of leadership – between leaders and the citizens, between leaders and the followers. If I promise something that when I enter into a public office I would do this or that, and I get into that office and I see that what I promised I could do, in reality, I cannot do it, I have to be open about it. It’s like a father in a house saying I’m going to get a promotion and when I get promotion my salary will be increased. We will change house, I will send you to better school, we will eat better food in the house. Then he gets the promotion and found out that the company is not able to afford what the previous people in his position were paid. If he’s a sincere father he should just go back to the family and say; my children and family, I have been promoted but when I was hoping for that promotion, these were my expectations but now that I’ve gotten the promotion instead of X, I see that they are actually giving me Y. I’m really sorry I will not be able to do what I have promised you to do because this is the situation that I found myself. However, instead of getting a new house we will refurbish this house we are in to make it look better. I will extend one of the rooms and may be, build an additional room. I will not be able to buy a new car like I have promised but I will make sure that we fix this car and ensure the air conditioner starts working and he shows his children his pay packet – that actually, this was what I thought I was going to get but see, this is what I’m getting now. In that kind of sincerity within the family setting, the children are likely to empathize with their father because the man has been open and sincere with them. They can say; okay daddy, it’s alright. May be, we hope for another thing. He may even get stronger support from his family than he thought before. That’s what sincerity and openness do. But if that father now begins to laud it over them, “yes, I said I was going to do those things but I can’t do them again. That’s it and it is final”. That father is not going to have it easy in that house. I believe that if leadership is sincere and within that sincerity you have honesty, you have openness to say the way things are. Perhaps, the citizens would have been more understanding. Also, in sincerity, you do not have deception, where you’re actually going right but you make people believe you’re going to the left.
This government has been there for six year now. Can you assess them in relation to what you’re talking about on sincerity?
The government has not been sincere with us! We do have other nations of the world where there’s this value that I’m talking about. Where a proud government official can actually come out and apologize to citizens that we are sorry, we missed it in this area and got things wrong. This was what we thought we were going to be able to do but we are sorry… With the situation on the ground we are sorry we will not be able to afford to do it. However, we will look at ways out. That is sincerity of government.
What do you think makes government not to be sincere?
Hidden agenda, a lot of times! In some situations with us there is a calculated attempt to deceive. You know you can deliberately deceive. You know that these things you’re saying is not true, you’re going to do it, you’re not going to make any effort towards it but you make people believe you’re going to do it. Just make people to believe. Leadership sometimes forget that people don’t forget. Majority may forget but some don’t forget that you said; this is what we’re going to do and you’re doing something contrary to what you promised.
What you’re saying; is it applicable to a situation where, for example, this present government in 2015 when they were campaigning said they were going to re-structure the country, Nigeria. In fact, that was one of the things that people were clamouring for. They also talked about devolution of power and ancillary issues which they have not followed up till now. Is it what you’re referring to as insincerity?
I will also tell you that within this concept that we are talking about and the deliberate attempt to deceive. I can actually tell you something when I mean something else and I can make you believe that this thing that I mean is this way. Let me give you an example, whenever there’s ambiguity in communication and in expression, majority of the time, it’s because there’s an agenda that is hidden as it’s been conceived. For example, if I say I will see you sometime in the evening and you’re asking when in the evening and I say, don’t worry, sometime in the evening I’ll see you. I am likely to see you or may not see you. You will find that in that communication there’s no commitment. So, if you come back to me and say but you said you will see me. I then say; I said that I may see you in the evening. And then, that evening becomes 2:00am, which is the morning of another day. But mind you, as at the time I was making the promise that I may see you or likely to see you in the evening I knew from the beginning that I was never going to see you at all. Because if I said I was going to see you in the evening, you will presuppose that I will put a plan in place to finish what I’m going to do on time because I have planned that I want to come and see you. So, we have a lot of slippery communication in leadership here. Where there’s a deliberate and calculated move not to make emphatic promises that can be held on to. That in itself is insincerity! Even amongst leadership, when you sit down sometimes and you watch proceedings in the legislative houses, you can even see amongst them that there are a lot of untoward misrepresentations that are going on. These things can cascade to any level. I just used the family level. But, it also exists even between friends. And don’t mistake me; a lot of Nigerians are insincere – between homes, in families, in businesses, in transactions, in everything. These people in leadership didn’t fall from heaven. They are from amongst us. We have that character or behavior that is pervasive and you don’t expect to get anything from there because the leaders that we have didn’t come from Mass or Venus. They didn’t come from Yugoslavia either. They are people from amongst us.
So, you’re saying the leadership problem is not just the issue among the leaders, but even among the ordinary Nigerians.
Yes, it happens amongst the citizens, the followers because most of the times servants become leaders. Looking at Nigeria today, many people leading us today were the followers of the leaders in the 60s. Now, there’s also sincere and insincere followership from the 60s. There are followers that follow just because of what they are going to get or what they are going to extract but make leadership believes they are following with their whole heart. All the cross-carpeting of politics and the politicians that we have; fighting tooth and nail yesterday and the next moment they cross-carpet to the side they were fighting tooth and nail yesterday. These things are absurd. Even at the foundation of basic relationships when there’s no sincerity there cannot be trust. There can’t be truthfulness, there can’t be honesty and there can’t be transparency. When all these things flourish one of the most dangerous outcomes of them is suspicion.
So, where does this sort of behavior comes from – attitudinal, from the society or social?
It is just our mind-set as a people. In every home, facet of our life you see this thing at play. I see and hear a lot of people talking about restructuring. I do not go against what they are saying but I keep on asking a fundamental question; let us assume those asking for self-determination get their wish or desire. In as much and as long as we remain who we are now as a people, if Nigeria becomes ten countries, we are just going to have ten problems of Nigeria replicated in ten places. Because if we are still the way we are – if we are greedy, self-centred, nepotistic – you will now begin to see the intrer-play of the problems of Nigeria now in those countries as intra-play in those countries. For example, if one of those countries now has five tribes, what is happening now amongst the major tribes in Nigeria will begin to happen amongst those five tribes within the new country, if we continue to think the way that we do. For example, if you talk about injustice that is a major bane in this country, we see it every day between Yorubas and fellow Yorubas, between Igbos and fellow Igbos and between Hausas and fellow Hausas. It’s just that when some part or when some level of these people have access to higher power or authority then there’s an accentuation of what has always been with them. The average Nigerian wants to be an oppressor – whether he’s a gateman or a managing director – He wants to be an oppressor. He wants to lord something over the next man. So, you go to a place where a gateman unilaterally begins to decide who goes in and who comes out. He sets the rules and does what he likes. You get to such a place to see his boss and he tells you; “sorry, sorry. He’s not even available”. You cannot see him”. And you can’t reach him to know whether he’s available or not. And right there in your very own eyes, somebody else will come and ask for the same person and the gateman will open the door and let them in. So, this oppressor mentality in Nigeria cut across every divide. So, when some people do not have access to power, these traits are subdued in them. Once they have access to power like when he becomes the Chief Driver, you will see a different animal all together. So, if we say we are doing this self-determination of a thing that we want to do self-restructuring; the first restructuring we need to do is how we think about ourselves and fellow citizens and about the rest of the world. That is a major thing. If we don’t address that, I don’t care if we become fourty countries. We are still just going to have an inter-play of the same things. In fact, what will shock you is that it will be much more intense than what we have now. Some of the communal clashes we are having in parts of this country from time past and still happening in some places now are technically of the same type. They are feuds that have been on-going for thirty something years and every other time they are killing themselves. There’s no stranger amongst them. So, where do we go from there?
Are you saying there’s no merit in asking for the re-structuring of Nigeria, to promote balance among the six regions?
There’s need for balance, don’t mistake me. There’s need for re-structuring. In life, at a point in time requires re-structuring. Why do businesses do reviews every year? In some small companies that we run, that we have been involved in and I’m sure others like you, have been involved in business. To do strategic review in some of these companies it takes days – two, three days – So, sometimes, I watch the executive council meetings of the nation and watching the proceedings for years. I keep wondering sometimes that with all the headaches in Nigeria the Executive Council just meet once a week in Abuja for a few hours and everybody goes. I ask myself; what could they really be discussing there? If we in the small operations we are running hold management meeting for days sometimes to address issues, we should begin to ask; where is the thinking capacity for the country? Every country as an entity that wants to grow and develop must have a deliberate thinking capacity to grow the country. We can never solve all the problems of course. Even though I’ve not been to Federal Executive Council meeting before, but I wonder what they are doing there in such short meetings and we’ve not heard from the public space that the Federal Executive Council meeting is holding by such a time to look at the issues facing the country. And decisions will be taken and we begin to see the impact of those decisions.
Let me take you back to your theory of ‘oppressor mentality’. The president Muhammadu Buhari in his interview on Arise TV had made statements that suggest he meant he will deal with people agitating for one thing or the other in the language they will understand. Some people think that he was un-presidential in his manner of speech. Do you think these lines signifies superiority or ‘oppressor mentality’?
Like I told you before, deep down within some Nigerians they like to oppress or to lord it over others. If anything happens between you and anyone in Nigeria in an open space that leads to contestation, what are the things you hear? Do you know who I am? That happens a lot of time! On the road, market place. What that question means really is that if you know who I am and you know that I have the power to oppress you, I have the power to deal with you, I have the power to get you locked up, the power to oppress you any way that I want, you won’t be relating with me the way that you’re doing now. Because a lot of our leaders have emerged from the military background, they speak the language of the military. So, if the president speaks like that we need to be sympathetic of his antecedent but he also needs to recognize that he’s not now a military head of state but that he was voted into power. I read his interview and his statement when he took oath of office that he belongs to everybody and belongs to nobody. If he were the head of the house of those people agitating and he’s the head of the family and he has his children misbehaving, will you in your rightful thinking being a father; deal with the children in the language they will understand? It’s a very big question, but you know, it’s also depends on the way we interpret the language they will understand and the language they won’t understand but it still goes back to the people. If Nigerians can be simply lawful in their mind-set and disposition, we would probably solve a lot of problems but it so happens that for most Nigerians if they do not get the animal treatment, threat or pressure or force, they will probably not be lawful at all.
What do you think is this thing about Nigerian mind-set that makes them behave the way they do?
The propensity to be unlawful is in everybody but what law does is to curb that propensity. There’s crime everywhere. Crime is not domicile in Nigeria and Africa alone. You need to know the kinds that are happening in Britain or in the United States of America. In most advanced environment there are still crimes there. Our own major problem here is that there’s no consequence for unlawful behavior. If there’s no consequence for unlawful behavior the people can go scot-free with whatever wrong they do and if they know they will go scot-free with whatever they do. No consequence for unlawful behavior, neither consequence nor reward for lawful behavior. The environment doesn’t encourage good behavior or goodness neither does it punish unlawful behavior. It’s just a free-flowing environment. When that persists it strengthens misbehaviour – knowing that whatever you do nothing happens. You will do it again and again and again until it becomes habitual. So, we are in a country where unlawful behavior is habitual. Because there’s no consequence for it, it just goes on and on and on!
Question 10. So, how do we resolve that situation?
Answer:
Leadership and government as it is, all over the world, must ensure that there’s a consequence for unlawful behavior. People should know that if they steal or do something that is contrary to the law, there’s consequence for it. When there’re no consequences for misbehaviour and unlawful behavior, the government will just be a toothless bulldog.
Question 11. What about the issue of the mind? How are we going to deal with the issue of the mind, something about our mind-set? Can you explain more?
Answer:
Just like you would respond to positive stimuli, if you do good today and you’re encouraged and rewarded, the propensity of your doing good will increase by a certain percentage. If you do it again, it then increases again. Even if you have a mindset that it doesn’t matter and you have a feeling that even if you do good, anyway, it doesn’t matter and the outcome begins to differ gradually it will affect the way you think. If you’ve had a mindset that it’s better to be unlawful. If you trample on lawful behavior and nothing happens and you do it again and nothing happens, the propensity to begin to do what is wrong begin to increase. Mankind responds to stimuli, whether positively or negatively. That is why you find out that if you sit here and everybody is happy and you hear gunshot outside, we are going to quickly react and ask ourselves. What do we do? Let us ensure our safety. That is a base point.
The government has the responsibility, the role to play in communicating to the people. We’ve really lost values. Leadership has not made any effort to lead by example. Look at our national pledge, for example; “I pledge to Nigeria my country” What does it mean to pledge? It means to give a commitment. “To be faithful, loyal and honest’. When those in leadership do not exhibit faithfulness, loyalty or honesty to the nation? How do you want the citizens to do the same? “To serve Nigeria with all, not some, my strength, to defend her unity and uphold her honour and glory, so help me God”! When you look at that statement in the national pledge, it is enough to refine the soul of this nation if we’re a serious people. I want to tell you that for every nation that has a citizenry and nationalistic in their disposition. Who are willing to do anything for their country, there is an orientation we had from youth, I’m sure you will attest to it that what made you who you are now is a function of some repetitive utterances that your parents made to you when you were young. They may have told you, “my son, make sure you don’t do this or that”. You must have grown-up with such. Even the holiday book says we should train the children in the way of the Lord so that when they grow up they will not depart from it. When you have parents with no sense of value, the family value system has collapsed. What kind of children do you want the parents to have? Any tree will produce after its own kind. Any animal will produce after its own kind. I do not think that the leadership of the country places value, even on the things that represent the symbol of this nation. Even as simple as the national pledge we recite every time, some recite is my heart. But what does it really mean to them? Does it really mean anything to them? If leadership first and foremost can begin to take the things that represent the identity of this country serious, then they must have begun a different kind of journey all together.
“Arise o compatriots
Nigeria’s call obey
To serve our father’s land, with love and strength and faith”
If you look at the national anthem itself, there are no many national anthem in the world that have the richness and the value system that the Nigerian National Anthem have but what have we made of it? Does it really mean anything to us as a people? Does it really mean anything to those in authority? Does it mean anything to those in position? Does it really mean anything to those that stands in position of leadership? If only they can lead by example what we utter and recite every day, if we grab those words from our mouth to our minds, we begin to live and express those things then we may begin to have some light at the end of the tunnel. Leadership means a lot and to some school of thought, leadership means everything. If you take to lead by example, some people will begin to follow. In the Nigerian nation even as pervasive as some of these things are, there are still some people with some level of sanity but they are afraid to express that sanity because the voice of insanity around them is so loud. It’s like you’re in a stadium and you’re the only supporter of your team there. You have gone to meet a team in their home front and then in stadium of fifty thousand people, fourty thousand are shouting and hailing a team, nobody is going to hear your voice if you decide to hail your own team. Somebody may say, come on, keep quiet. That’s exactly the situation some people are in, such that many Nigerians that actually would love to do good. They want to obey the law, want to be lawful, and like I said before, because there’s no consequence, short-court is always very attractive because you don’t need to pay any price. Those that are taking the short-court tend to be making a head-way. So, a lot of people begin to think this short-court is better. Gradually, you then have a migration and we have become a nation of short-court. People look for short-court to pass exams. They look for short-court to get degrees. We read and hear every time that people in leadership position have questionable credentials. That’s the Even if you didn’t go to school or didn’t have a degree, that doesn’t stop you from being a good leader that you are. But why must we mis-represent things?
Question 12. How does Mindshift come into play here?
Answer:
Everything starts from the mind. Whatever a man becomes is an outcome of his mindset. There have been efforts in time past to try to shift this mindset. A lot of efforts that government has engaged in in the days of ‘War Against Indiscipline’ (WAI), Mass Mobilization and Social Economic Recovery (MAMSER). Government have done a lot of those efforts to try change mindshift but one of the major crisis is that there seems to be no understanding of the way the mind of people work. When you don’t understand the way someone’s mind works, how can you make attempt to shift his mindset? The second point is that when leadership is trying to sell something that is not doing, what people can obviously see that leadership is not doing, it becomes a hard task. The mindshift perspective is a tough task but we believe that if we begin to consciously and deliberately work on the minds of people to think differently, to begin to re-think, that why did I do things the way I did it? Why are we where we are? When you re-think properly, some things begin to appear to you obviously and you tell yourself, if I want things to change, I need to do-different. It’s a very long journey and we’re not unaware of it. Anytime we have activity to shift minds of human beings, it’s always up-hill task. But there are proven methodology that have worked and will continue to work because the minds and psychological make-up of human beings remain the same. If you understand the way that mind works, we believe that we can begin to change mindsets. We are not very hopeful that we can get rapid shift but in the change theory of communities globally it has been proven that you don’t need more than a square root of the population to make the change happen. This theory of decent that we began to face as a nation started with a handful of people and gradually they began to win people over and we’ve gotten to where we are now, but that also can be changed. So, in your immediate environment, within your circle of influence, how do people think there? What do you try to show them by example? How much do you spend with them to show the right way things ought to be? We have become a nation that look at wrong doings and sometimes rejoice or sometimes laugh at them. We sometimes make jokes of them but unknown to many, we’re making a joke of our future and that’s what got us to where we are now. We need to take time whenever we see wrong doing to address the person involve. The person may not listen but you would have sown a seed. As many opportunities that come to you, try to correct wrong doings. Try to correct wrong values. Try to correct wrong behavior. Perhaps, out of the number of people you talk to within a month, two persons may consider what you’re saying is true. We need to re-think. We need to reflect and we need to do-different. It is not a very popular route to go but goodness, good doings, trust, positive directions are never a game of popularity.
Question 13. Is it possible that’s why Mindshift Advocacy doesn’t attract some people? Can you tell us more about your organization?
Answer:
Mindshift Advocacy for Development Initiative is based on the understanding that for significant change to take place, the mind has to think differently. For instance, I would like to have something but I don’t have money for it and then your mind begins to decide. How can I get this phone even though I cannot afford to buy it and I begin to watch the person, will it leave it carelessly so that I can have it? Everything starts from the mind. The bible says, “As a man thinketh in his mind, so he is”. We become what we think. If we are able to work on the mindset like Paul Kegame, President of Rwanda said, that the number strategy for change and development in Africa is shifting mindset. Before anybody gets to a point to take up arms and begin to destroy properties, there is a mindset that he has. Before anybody can also do good there’s also a mindset that the person must have. Our belief is that if we are able to fine-tune the mindset of our people we will be able to get positive result. I stand to be corrected; no one has been able to argue otherwise that where we find ourselves now is as a result of how we think. Everything that we do comes from the way that we think. If I keep saying I’m an Igbo man is somebody else is not worthy of this or that, it will influence my behavior. It will influence my world-view. It will influence my pattern of how I relate with people but if I’m able to reflect, re-think and do-different. If I’m able to have an open mind, I’ll begin to do-different. Our thinking is that from the visionary perspective we can have a working country that is a first-world country. It’s possible because we have everything that it takes. Some nations of the world that have been in bad situations that we are in now have been able to turn things around. There are criminals all over the world. Some people will go to jail, they will release them and they will go back to jail in another two weeks because they will still go and commit another crime. But some people when they pass through the correctional centres, which is the new name they’ve given to jails and prisons now. When they come out, they will not want to go through that place. They become changes. Real change can actually come and real mindshift can actually come when you live by example. Whether we accept it or not we are all sources of influences even to some people that we may not know – people who admire us, who see us as fathers, who see us as role models.
Question 14. How does the movement operate? Is it something you’re running as an individual? What’s the structure of the organization, is it something that is open to the public?
Answer:
It is open to the public. When you look at our website you will see that we’ve been engaging with different stakeholders. We have a structure that is gradually evolving. If you go to the website you will see some of the initiatives… because we are in an environment where majority benefit from the wrong mindset you rarely would have positive support. If somebody has mindset that the end justifies the means and he’s a short-court person. Whenever he goes to a place he would say, let me just settle them. If that’s what he has benefited from for twelve years and you say to him you need to think differently. It becomes a hard task. In telling him to think differently we need support for him to put resources behind the activities. To the extent that he knows that when people begin to think differently he’s not going to continue to enjoy the benefits he’s enjoying from that wrong mindset now, he tactically wouldn’t say know but at the same time he cannot commit to any serious support. That has been one of the major challenges that we have in getting support. However, we’ve never thought it was going to be a walk-over or an easy journey. There are things that we will be unveiling at different stages and at different point in time. We also need to be sensitive to the environment on what is happening in the country so that we are not also, out of responsibility, add fuel to fire. We need to be cautious of that responsibility. I’m just been very sincere here. If a man is agitated and his angry, you do not calm that man down by uttering angry words or words that aggravate things further. You would have to first of all look for a way to calm down his nerves against his level and intensity of his anger before you can make any meaningful conversation in that direction. I want to assure you there are plans and we have engaged people and we are also….. progress. Also, when you look at the concept of discipleship, it’s one at a time. The various group that we have that we have engaged and still engaging with, we believe that the effort will soon begin to yield result. We need ambassadors to stand in for the right thing, stand-in for the right mindset. You will agree with me that to do the right thing in this environment is not a popular thing. If you join a company and you want to do the right thing you will hear people saying, is it your father’s company. We are in a society that celebrates unlawful benefits. We don’t ask questions. Nowadays, parents groom children that bring things home that does not belong to them and parents doesn’t ask any question. You have a son that you know he’s working in a new place and he’s been paid One Hundred Thousand Naira in a month and he brings in a new car six months after, and you’re not asking questions, and he buys a house and you still didn’t ask questions when his salary is still on One Hundred and Thirty Thousand Naira a month. The same way you find people in this environment, both private and public service who have salaries of Ten Million Naira in their accounts and they are living in the porches areas in town. How does it happen? We don’t ask questions because we have told ourselves that, these things have a way of happening. It’s a deliberate thing. It’s a long haul. Mindshift Advocacy is not a sprint, like something you do very quickly, no. Cast your mind back and remember how long it took us to get to where we are now. Some of us are not yet sixty, but growing up in some part of this country in our life time, we saw behaviour that were actually value-driven. We saw honesty. There was a time in this country that if you forgot your purse or any valuable in a taxi, the taxi driver would trace your house and to return your lost item at a time there was no mobile phone to call anybody. We’ve lost our sense of goodness as a people. We’ve lost our sense of mercifulness as a people. We’ve lost our sense of responsibility as a people. Gone are the days when you’re actually your brother’s keeper. These days, nobody really cares. In those days, a young child on the street was everybody’s child. Everybody looks after that child. Everybody takes responsibility for that child. In those days if you thought you could escape your parent’s discipline and play some pranks, other parents will see you and discharge their duties as parents over you. We’ve lost all that. We are seeing the results of that loss of values that we experienced then. I now hear that parents go to bribe school authorities to arrange for exams to pass their children whereas, in those days if your father heard that you did anything funny in school you will be in for it. The rot has become very cancerous. In one of our sessions…pervasive cancer like we do have, you cannot cure all the cancer at the same time. You have to administer local treatment. So, you pick an area that the cancer has operated in and deal with the cancer cells in that area and ring first the area from further mutation of the cell. Then you move to the next area, because the cancer has even affected the nervous system of the country. We are sure that it is not something that is going to happen overnight. Treatments like this don’t ever have quick fix.
Question 15. Anyone listening to you now could easily mistake you as Chairman of the National Orientation Agency (NOA). How do you connect what you’re doing with what NOA is supposed to be doing?
Answer:
NOA knows what they are supposed to be doing. There’s a charter that established the National Orientation Agency (NOA). Orientation is essentially communication. Just like it is that there are different kinds of music, in those days when soldiers want to go to war, the kind of music that is played to them incites the warrior spirit. But when people want to relax, it has its own kind of music. There ought to be a deliberate strategy on the part of Nigeria’s National Orientation Agency to communicate issues. There is no issue that we have in Nigeria that communication cannot address. Unfortunately, we also have a lot of people in authorities now who don’t communicate and that is borne out of the mindset that leadership has, that we’re here to laud ourselves over the people. Those that lead the country generally do not perceive that they are supposed to be rendering service to the nation. They do not perceive that they answerable to the citizens. They do not perceive that they are accountable to the citizens. And the citizens also do not perceive that these people are accountable to them. So, they laud it over them. I go to churches and I see pastors coming in and the congregation milling around them, struggling to take their bags, to clean their shoes etc. and I’m like; where did this orientation comes from? The pastor is the chief servant of the church and he’s actually there because of the people. Do politicians realize they are there because of Nigerians? I don’t think so. From every indication that you see, it’s only when threat is ripe and that threat is moving near to them that they get threatened, but when it’s the other way round they don’t care. For crying out loud, somebody who is an office holder we talk about wants to go out to his office and the roads are block because of him and the citizens that you’re supposed to make their lives easier, you’re making their lives very unbearable. Because there’s also a mindset in Nigeria of ‘born-to-suffer’, the citizens just absorb those things and just go on. Because the ‘born-to-suffer’ mentality is also a mindset and if it works that way, we cannot but have the kind of situation we are.
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