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  • Olaopa decries poor state of policy research, govt disconnect in Africa

    Olaopa decries poor state of policy research, govt disconnect in Africa

    The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has voiced concern over a significant disconnect between policy research efforts and the priorities of African governments, pointing to an ineffective alignment of research outputs with local policy needs. Speaking at the 6th General Assembly of the Association of African Public Service Commissions (AAPSCOMS) in Nairobi, Kenya, where he was named Vice President, Olaopa highlighted a systemic failure in Africa’s policy-making processes and decried the region’s reliance on foreign-funded research.

    In his presentation, “Defining Issues in Research and Policy Linkages in Country-Level Development Management in Africa,” Olaopa observed that African nations allocate an alarmingly low budget to research compared to global contributions, a factor that exacerbates the lack of a data-driven policy culture. This gap, he argued, leaves Africa dependent on foreign development agencies for essential data and research, creating a cycle of dependency that undermines the continent’s self-determined development goals. “This reality explains why African states struggle to design development agendas on their own terms,” he noted, adding that the foreign funding of African data skews policy-making towards external priorities rather than local needs.

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    The professor lamented that African governments remain overly focused on “hardware” indicators of development, such as infrastructure, while neglecting the “intangible assets” that foster sustainable growth. These include quality education, institutional strength, the rule of law, a robust judicial system, and property rights. According to Olaopa, “African states fail to prioritize intangible assets like social capital, timely data, R&D, data privacy, intellectual property, and a culture of innovation.” He emphasized that these elements are essential to nurturing environments where professionals and researchers can thrive—conditions he noted are better available in the West, where African professionals are significantly more productive due to the supporting “capacity context.”

    Olaopa illustrated his point by recalling Prof. Wolfgang Stolper, an advisor to Nigeria’s First National Development Plan, who in 1966 criticized the country’s planning approach as “planning without facts.” This concept, he argued, remains relevant today as African nations continue to formulate policies without a reliable data framework. He warned that development planning divorced from context-appropriate, evidence-based research leaves African states at the mercy of external agendas and donor-imposed conditions.

  • Professor Tunji Olaopa and the reform struggle in Nigeria (2)

    Professor Tunji Olaopa and the reform struggle in Nigeria (2)

    Like some of our country’s most profound and accomplished literary and intellectual minds such as Professors  Wole Soyinka, J.P. Clark, Chinua Achebe, Femi Osofisan or Niyi Osundare to name a few, who were deeply grounded in the language, culture and traditions of their communal, ethnic origins, Professor Tunji Olaopa’s intellectual memoir reveals his firm rootedness in and immense gratitude for an early penetrating immersion in the values of the Okeho and Aawe Yoruba communities of South-West Nigeria where he was born and had his childhood and youthful acculturation and maturation. He writes fondly of the moral values, life-affirming communal ethos and virtues as well as disciplinary ethic that molded his growing up in these communities. Olaopa’s profound love of and limitless affection for western education and its rich intellectual heritage did not alienate or delink him from his traditional cultural moorings but rather the traditional and the modern had a mutually reinforcing symbiosis in his mental and psychological makeup as exhibited by his expansive, accommodationist and syncretic worldview.

    Olaopa demonstrates a deep knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the historical origins, cultural matrix and psychic predisposition of his native Aawe. He is the urbane, global intellectual and citizen who is yet acutely embedded in the local soil that sprang him. Indeed, his unquenchable thirst and hunger for western education and knowledge responsible for his no mean accomplishments in life so far have their roots in his Aawe socio-cultural environment. As he put it, “The re-education I got on my return to Aawe went beyond Mama Muniratu’s good doses of lessons in physical hard work and industriousness. I was also regaled with stories of the diligence that went into the founding of the town and the vision that bred so many illustrious sons and daughters who became beacons of possibilities for younger generations like mine. It became obvious early in Aawe that the only way to make up for what Awe lacked in historical significance, like the imperial glory of Oyo, was to take education seriously”. It was from this early period that the example of the great Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, the renowned economist from Aawe, was to be of profound inspirational significance for Oloapa in his evolving educational odyssey and future intellectual as well as bureaucratic career.

    He writes that “The first fifteen years of my life was spent in cultural and educational journeys from Okeho to Akure, and then Sango-Ota, back to Okeho, then to Iseyin and, finally, Aawe”. The political scientist in him draws critical parallels or divergences between the political organization and cultures in these communities of his early local peregrinations in the South-West and the larger Nigerian polity of his later adulthood. For instance, writing of Okeho, he notes that “Indeed, Okeho is many things that Nigeria is not. Aside its original confederate communities, Okeho grew to incorporate many other peoples and different faiths in relative peaceful coexistence. I remember we had Hausa-Fulani neighbours who were Muslims as others who were adherents of traditional religions. The Hausa-Fulani had stayed so long as to have integrated themselves into the Yoruba cultural environment without being forced in any way to jettison their cultural identity…But Okeho of those years signaled for me the very possibility of plural coexistence that Nigeria is striving for”.

    No less fascinating is Oloapa’s narrative of the impact of mutually accommodating and harmonious coexistence of the various religions of Christianity, Islam and traditional African spirituality characteristic of Yoruba communities in the evolution of his religious belief and practice. His description of his quest for spiritual illumination and religious fulfillment reminds one of similar narratives in Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s autobiography of his spiritual adventures during his studies in the United Kingdom which took him from theism through agnosticism until the sage finally birthed at a firm orthodox Christian faith even though he was also deeply immersed in esoteric, mystical spirituality. Professor Olaopa’s strong spiritual convictions as a practicing Christian of a restrained, non-materialistic Pentecostal orientation is obvious. There is no doubt that his Christian moral convictions partly nourish and fuel his obsessive lifelong preoccupation with ceaseless and never -ending reform at the personal and institutional levels. There is as Bishop Hassan Kukah notes in his foreword a subtle, unobtrusive spiritual sense of mission in the passion and fervor with which the author has dedicated his life to the actualization of his vision of reform. The author points out that “Okeho and Aawe were my first introduction to the deep and experiential understanding of what Ali Mazrui calls Africa’s triple heritage of the confluence of western Christianity, Islam and traditional African religion” noting that “The force of modernity that colonization accelerated became a disruptive influence on how Africans perceive themselves and others. And in its place is a new template of three different cultural values struggling to find coherence. In a place like Nigeria, the coherence of Christianity, Islam and Traditional religions has failed to materialize still”.

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    We follow Olaopa’s educational trajectory from his humble beginnings at Christ Baptist School, Aawe, through Ebenezer Anglican Primary School, Akure, Iseyin District Grammar School and Aawe High School where he completed his secondary school education in 1977. His attendance at the famous Olivet Baptist Heights School, Oyo, where he obtained the Higher School Certificate (HSC) was a major milestone in this regard. In his words, “From Aawe High School to Olivet Heights, I learnt precious lessons that added to my stock of life capacities and values required to advance in life and be a better person, first, to oneself and then to others”. Recte Sapere fons (For knowledge and Sound Wisdom), the motto of the University of Ibadan, where he obtained his B.Sc and M.Sc degrees in Political Science, was a powerful motivating factor in the molding of Olaopa, the man, bureaucrat  and scholar. The academic, social and personal fulfillment he experienced at the prestigious institution as narrated in chapter four of the book is evident and infectious.

    According to him, “In retrospect, it would seem that all my journeys towards intellectual “beingness” climaxed at the University of Ibadan. At the time I was still undecided about the choice to make between law and political science, the University of Ibadan had already cast a long shadow over the other universities; it was simply the place to be. It was already a symbol of academic excellence and, I believe, it is still unbeaten today – it is the first and best”. Particularly enthralling is his narration of his foray into student union politics when he made an ultimately futile but no less personally edifying bid for the presidency of the students’ union. Oloapa writes fondly of his various teachers at different stages of his educational career and particularly at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. So important were the writings of Plato to his intellectual development that he devotes a chapter to ‘Plato and the Intellectual Mentors’. Although he had read widely in literature, politics, philosophy and biographies of eminent personalities, Plato’s ‘The Republic’ in particular made a marked impression on Olaopa and possibly laid the foundation for his lifelong preoccupation with public sector reform in Nigeria.

    In his words, “However, when I started rummaging through the book, I got more than just the dramatic contents. On the contrary, I was opened up to a large expanse of intellectual frameworks that speak to what it means to reform a polity that had gone terribly bad and had sabotaged its original objectives. In retrospect, I suspected the seed of inquiry into social harmony and institutional reform was sown at that time”.

    To be concluded

  • FCSC chair, NECA DG urge industrial harmony

    FCSC chair, NECA DG urge industrial harmony

    The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, NPOM, has called on employers, workers and the government to be much more innovative in deploying out-of-the-box ideas and patriotism to establish and sustain a working consensus on industrial harmony as a critical success factor in meeting the aspirations of the renewed hope agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

    Olaopa made the call when he received a team from the Nigerian Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) led by its Director-General, Mr. Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, during a visit.

    “As a former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Productivity, I knew first-hand the crisis and threats of industrial disharmony, the nuances, and how it is almost practically impossible to ward off such threats without constructive tripartism between the three social partners in industrial relations – workers, employers and government,” Olaopa observed.

    He noted that serious work was needed to establish the required institutional framework for harmonious industrial relations, including legislative reform and a revamp of the protocols for collective bargaining and dispute resolution, adding that the government might need to convene the tripartite social partners in a no-holds-barred dialogue where all the issues are put on the table and resolved in a spirit of give-and-take to achieve the working consensus on industrial harmony as a basis for praxis going forward.

    While observing that some critically needed, irreducible economic reform policies of the Tinubu administration may have caused a measure of disruption and triggered the exit of some major industries and employers, Olaopa said it was vital to strengthen institutional conversation between the public service and industry on the one hand, and at once strengthen the institutional capacity of the public sector to harness the full benefits of public-private partnership (PPP), a process that will involve deploying elements of private sector management know-how to strengthen public sector productivity, on the other.    

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    The FCSC Chairman disclosed that due to the Commission’s deeply weak institutional capacity worsened by the turnover rate of pool staff posted from the civil service to the Commission, the Commission has resolved to professionalise its secretariat and to once institute performance management as key steps in transforming it to a professional hub and centre of excellence for human resource management in the public service.

    “The Commission would therefore welcome NECA’s support in facilitating a staff exchange programme that will enable us to harness the professionalism of human resource management experts from collaborating companies who will serve as mentors and coaches to a new corps of headhunted staff and newly recruited specialists to set up a new management system for the Commission,” the Chairman requested.  

    In his remarks, NECA DG Oyerinde stated that economic growth was very much in the interest of the association. “That is why we are fully supportive of your proposals for industrial harmony, as such harmony is an indispensable condition for growth and development.”

  • Tunji Olaopa: Broadening the career paths to the academy

    On Tuesday, November 20, 2018, Professor Tunji Olaopa—an erudite intellectual in his own right—will deliver his  Inaugural Lecture at Lead City University, Ibadan, Nigeria. Thereafter, I will chair a discussion on the thematic topic, “Scholar-Practitioner Model as Game Changer in University Education.” Part of my avowed duty as the chairperson for this crucial function is to invite to the podium three eminently-lettered speakers: Pat Utomi, Odia Ofeimun, and Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah. The preface to this occasion is how our subject—Tunji Olaopa—a distinguished administrator-cum-public servant, earned a PhD degree while still in public service as well as how he eventually and successively became a prolific scholar, a public intellectual, and a professor.

    Without mincing words, I can attest to the transparent fact that Olaopa’s career also reminded me of the distinguished career path of the late Professor Saburi Biobaku, who indefatigably served as a Professor, a Registrar and a Vice-Chancellor on different occasions in his long career. In recent years, Dr. Dapo Afolabi was, for example, a Professor of Chemistry, a Director of a federal agency and, finally, he ended up as the Head of the Federal Civil Service in Abuja, thus, indeed, following the illustrious 1960s’ civil service footsteps of Chief Simeon Olaosebikan Adebo (1913-1994).

    “Many roads lead to the market,” underscores a Yoruba proverbial axiom. Consequently, as a decent crowd converges on this market, the allotted space, the traders, the buyers and the spectators become both beneficiaries and benefactors. In the process, the boundaries between the formal and the informal become dissolved in the market. Conversely, one can question unequivocally: How, indeed, can many roads lead to academic careers in Nigerian universities?

    Furthermore, the intriguing question I would additionally like to answer is the following: how can multiple talents from the corporate, bureaucratic, and private worlds converge on universities to rethink the system, reorganize managements as well as spaces and, in the process, to empower the students? In practical terms, can Odia Ofeimum be recruited by the University of Ibadan to teach Literature and Politics? In a similar breath can Bishop Kukah be appointed a  Professor of Religious Studies at Usmanu Danfodiyo University? Why is King Sunny Ade, based in Ondo, not teaching Music at Adeyemi College of Education, which is based a few miles from  his house?

    Most certainly, in line with the foregoing, we need to pay attention to the future career of Professor Tunji Olaopa— who is a Technocrat-cum-Scholar—and see the impact he can make on Lead City University. Should he succeed, his experience will create a template for the widening of the paths that

  • Tunji Olaopa: from civil servant to public governance professor

    My esteemed friend and mentor, Dr. Tunji Olaopa, one of Nigeria’s most brilliant public intellectuals, has just been appointed to the distinguished rank of professor of public administration at Lead City University (LCU), Ibadan. This elevation, which comes three years after the end of his illustrious career in the Nigerian civil service, spanning nearly three decades, will see Dr Olaopa returning to the classroom, not as a student, but in a professorial capacity in which he is expected to stimulate critical thinking while also imparting his innovative ideas in public governance scholarship to his students. Were it to be in one of America’s top colleges, Dr Olaopa would have been conferred with the title of ‘Professor of Practice’ in Public Administration, an academic honour reserved for a select group of scholars who combine exceptional intellectual accomplishments with high level real-world experience in their chosen careers. Nonetheless, this appointment by LCU is a testament to more than two decades of Dr Olaopa’s prodigious contributions to public education and nation building in Nigeria.

    My first encounter with Dr Olaopa was in 2013 and it was on the pages of four Nigerian national dailies – Thisday, The Guardian, Daily Trust, and Leadership – where he regularly churned out scholarly articles to address critical issues in public administration and management, education, and national development. At this time, Dr Olaopa was serving as permanent secretary in the Federal Ministry of Communications Technology, being the fifth post he was superintending in that capacity, between 2010 when he was first appointed as permanent secretary and 2015 when he retired from the federal civil service. Within a space of five years, he had served consecutively as permanent secretary in the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, State House, Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, and Federal Ministry of Youth Development, before ending at the Federal Ministry of Communications Technology. Despite his enormous responsibilities, Dr Olaopa still maintained his columns.

    I finally met Dr Olaopa in person later in 2013 at a public discourse on good governance organised by The Kukah Centre, a public policy think-tank, in Abuja. Bishop Kukah was the one who introduced me to Dr Olaopa. Until then I had only maintained contact with this prodigious intellect by email and telephone. After our first meeting, I began to follow Dr Olaopa’s academic, and intellectual engagements with near keen mindedness. Reading his brilliant commentaries on national issues in the dailies always left me wondering how a senior civil servant with immense responsibilities could still have the time to produce such intellectual masterpieces. I concluded that there must be something about what Chinua Achebe calls “commitment” running through Dr Olaopa’s mind. In his stimulating memoir, There Was a Country, Achebe asserts that, “it is impossible to write anything in Africa without some kind of commitment, some kind of message, some kind of protest.” Achebe’s idea of commitment is a moral imperative to put one’s literary and scholastic gifts at the service of nation building, while his idea of protest is dictated by the decadent state of much of postcolonial African society at the time when he cut his literary teeth in the public domain. For Achebe, every writer is expected to take this postcolonial disposition into consideration, with the state of health of his society dictating the style of his writing: “if a society is ill, the writer has a responsibility to point it out. If a society is healthier, the writer’s job is different,” Achebe states.

    It seems to me that it was on the basis of Achebe’s wise counsel that Dr Olaopa chiselled the orientation of his public intellectual engagements, which was tailored to “protest” against the bureaucratic inertia and decadence in Nigeria’s civil service after a vicious legacy of military bastardization. Thus, Olaopa’s overriding desire was to see progressive leaps in the overall performance of the nation’s civil service in line with global best practices in a modern political economy. Even though he was operating within the confines of a decadent environment suffused with the politics of lamentation about poor and inefficient public service delivery, he cut out for himself a different path. Instead of joining the bandwagon of artisans of complaints, Dr Olaopa chose to rise above the suffocation of the moment.  By wielding the radical cudgel of scholarship, he became an active change agent and a catalyst in Nigeria’s civil service transformation. He clearly understood the fundamental role of the intellectual in nation building and fashioned his art in response to this arduous task.

    In his preface to his book, The Labour of Our Heroes (2016), this is how Olaopa conceptualised his intellectual mission: “When I began writing in the public sphere, I had just one objective – to critically highlight those issues that I consider germane in our collective attempt at coming to terms with the objective existence of Nigeria.” In this way, he shows the remarkable commitment that runs through not just his writings but also his entire civil service career, namely, heeding the summons of the first stanza of our national anthem, “Arise o compatriot, Nigeria’s call obey. To serve our fatherland, with love and strength and faith.” He simply wanted to contribute his own quota towards Nigeria’s betterment. I believe that when at a future date the high court of history sits in judgment over Dr Olaopa’s legacy, it is against his radical decision to heed the sublime patriotic invocation in the first stanza of our national anthem that his prodigious contributions to nation building will be rewarded.

    Born on 20 December 1959 at Awe in Afijio LGA of Oyo State, Olaopa studied at the premier University of Ibadan obtaining a BA in Politics in 1984 and an MA in Political Theories in 1987. When he entered the Nigerian civil service in 1988 in Lagos, he was already well groomed intellectually to understand the critical role of the civil service as the engine of national development. Within this understanding, Olaopa applied himself assiduously to his tasks. After almost two decades of active civil service and rising through the ranks, Olaopa decided to pursue doctoral studies. In 2006, he completed his PhD in Public Administration at the Commonwealth Open University in the UK.

     During the course of his doctoral research, formulated against the backdrop of his civil service experience, Olaopa arrived at a profound diagnosis of the ailment stalling the efficiency of the Nigerian civil service: “Too many people do too little, too few people do too much, and too many do nothing.”

    With this new knowledge, Dr Olaopa returned to the civil service with new zeal and new commitment to combine scholarship and the strength of ideas in the context of his professional career. He set again for himself the task of pulling up Nigeria’s civil service by the bootstraps so as to reposition, re-engineer, rebuild, and transform it for world-class performance in the modern knowledge economy. He planned to achieve this ambitious task in three ways. First, through the generation of serious intellectual conversation on critical issues and challenges facing the Nigerian civil service and governance space and how these issues are to be resolved. These conversations took place through his newspaper commentaries on national issues, essays in academic journals, critical monographs, and lectures at classrooms, boardrooms, seminars, and conferences. Any perceptive reader who takes up Dr Olaopa’s writings will immediately spot at least three critical qualities: one, a breathtaking grasp of current theories in philosophy, politics, and public policy; two, a thoroughgoing mastery of the subject matter of his discourse mediated through a well-honed writing skill that makes his articles and essays comprehensible to the scholar and the ordinary reader; and three, a consistent effort to bridge the gap between theory and praxis. In this respect, there are tons of volumes that attest to Dr Olaopa’s notable scholarship in public service reforms and public administration and management in Nigeria and Africa.

    The second way Dr Olaopa set out to achieve his mission was by putting his vast breadth of knowledge and expertise at the service of the nation through his civil service career so as to contribute his own quota to national development. He discharged his duties in the various offices and posts he served with high diligence and never turned down any task assigned to him that was geared towards the good of the nation. At different moments in his civil service career, Dr Olaopa was tapped to head or supervise think tanks on public service reforms in several different MDAs where he designed, reviewed, and monitored the implementation of strategic action plans on civil service reforms and institutional and governance restructuring. Because his innovative ideas were constantly sought-after at different levels of government bureaucracy, Dr Olaopa was regularly transferred from one MDA to another where he used his expertise to resolve complex dilemmas. For the first time, it seemed that the Nigerian government understood the meaning of the words “merit” and “competence” and thus decided to tap into Dr Olaopa’s intellectual assets for the benefit of the nation’s civil service.

    The third way that Dr Olaopa set out to achieve his mission in the civil service coincides with his insider understanding of the dynamics of our national development project, and the role of the civil service in the actualisation of that development agenda. This led him to intervene through well-researched published books. In this area, Dr Olaopa’s scholarship spans a wide range of concerns such as: civil service reforms, public administration and management, politics, leadership and good governance, and the role of education and educational institutions in improving Nigeria’s public sector efficiency and performance. Seeking to ground these concerns in the moral vision of societal transformation, Dr Olaopa also produced inspiring hagiographical narratives on the contributions of critical patriots – past and present – to the renovation of the entire fabric of our national development project. Books on these areas are: A Prophet is Without Honour: Life and Times of Ojetunji Aboyade (1997), The Joy of Learning (2010), Public Sector Reforms in Africa (2011), Public Administration and Civil Service Reforms in Nigeria (2012), Innovation and Best Practices in Public Sector Reforms (2012), The Nigerian Civil Service of the Future (2014), Civil Service and the Imperative of Nation Building (2016), The Labours of our Heroes: Thematic Narratives on the Nigerian National Project (2016), Reforming the Reformable: Post-Retirement Reflections on the Nigerian Civil Service (2016), Reforms, Governance and Development in Nigeria (2017), and Transforming the African Public Service (2017).

    After an illustrious civil service career during which time he gave birth to about a dozen books that were a crystallisation of his innovative ideas on public sector reforms, Dr Olaopa took his patriotic commitment to scholarship and nation building further and set up the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP), situated on the famous Awolowo Road in Bodija, right behind the Catholic Seminary of Ss. Peter and Paul where I studied for the priesthood for eight years. ISGPP (isgpp.com.ng) is the first of its kind in Nigeria and it is devoted to cutting-edge research and scholarship in government, public policy, public administration, and human resource development in Nigeria. Its graduate programmes are structured to respond to multidisciplinary approaches to the theory and practice of public governance as is found in many top academic institutions around the world and are taught by world-class faculty with international and cross-cultural experience.

    In the course of his civil service career, Dr Olaopa traversed the globe delivering keynote lectures, attending executive courses, moderating international conferences, and sharing his expertise with a diverse body of international scholars, institutions, and groups. To peer at his curriculum vitae is to zoom in on an impressive yet intimidating résumé of a refined and cosmopolitan intellectual soul. In 2016 when I brought together a few intellectually progressive young minds to set up a book club devoted to promoting a culture of reading and intelligent public conversation on issues of leadership, politics, governance, and human development amongst Nigerian youth, Dr Olaopa was one of the few accomplished public intellectuals that I approached to sit on the club’s board so that we can draw inspiration from his wellspring of scholastic endeavours.

    Dr Olaopa is a member of several professional bodies in Nigeria and across the globe and is also a distinguished recipient of several honours, notably the Thabo Mbeki Award for Public Service and Scholarship (2018), Award of Excellence of Historical Society of Nigeria (2016), Award of Excellence of Nigerian Institute of Physics (2015), Senior Fellowship of the Nigerian Leadership Institute (2015), Nigerians of Reputation–Thisday Newspaper (2014), 50 Most Exemplary Alumni of the University of Ibadan (2013), Dr Kwame Nkrumah African Distinguished Public Service Order of Merit (2012), and 50 Nigerians of Integrity– Profiles of Nigeria at 50 by Guardian Newspaper (2011). In August 2015, three months before Dr Olaopa’s retirement as federal permanent secretary, President Buhari conferred on him the National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM), a special recognition reserved for outstanding Nigerians who have displayed a high level of patriotism, creativity, performance, innovation, integrity, discipline, and efficiency in contributing to Nigeria’s national productivity.

    To this day, Bishop Kukah’s regret, which he has shared with me several times, is that such a brilliant scholar and fine public servant did not become the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, a critical role that would have afforded the nation the opportunity of effectively tapping into his expertise in public service reforms. Fortunately, Dr Olaopa’s brain is not lying fallow. He has been summoned by providence to put his scholarship and professional experience at the service of the nation’s next generation leaders through his magisterial office in the university, just as he has done in the last three years through ISGPP. If anyone is looking for the incubator for Nigeria’s next generation public servants, Lead City University Ibadan is the right place to turn the navigational compass.

    When I informed Bishop Kukah through text a few days ago that our mutual friend, Dr Olaopa has been appointed professor of public administration at Lead City University, Kukah replied immediately with a one-liner “He more than deserves it.” It is a measure of Bishop Kukah’s wit that he chose to recognise the greatness of Dr Olaopa and of his notable contributions to expanding the frontiers of Nigeria’s intellectual firmament in five simple but profound words. I believe, as I have said elsewhere, that Dr Olaopa’s appointment is a plus, not to him, but to Lead City University that was smart enough to pull him into its ivory tower. I have no doubt that both the faculty and students of Lead City will benefit immensely from Dr Olaopa’s three decades of unparalleled scholarship and professional experience in the public service arena in Nigeria.

    Paraphrasing Odia Ofeimun in his foreword to Dr Olaopa’s book, The Labour of Our Heroes, let me be bold to say – even though I know that Dr Olaopa’s sense of modesty will resist it – that he truly belongs to the pantheon of the all-time Nigerian greats because he has done enough for this country to be placed amongst the heroes that he has been so keen to celebrate as a paradigm shift in purpose-driven leadership in our part of the world.

     

    Congratulations our new Professor Tunji Olaopa. May your stars never dim!

     

    *Ojeifo, a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, is a student of Religion and Global Politics at SOAS, University of London.

     

    2,579 words.

     

    • Ojeifo, a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Abuja, is a student of Religion and Global Politics at SOAS, University of London.
  • Data protection experts task NASS on legal framework

    Data protection experts task NASS on legal framework

    African Academic Network on Internet Policy have requested that the National Assembly inserts the following in a data protection framework or bill; use of personal data must be in accordance with the purpose for which it was collected, consent of the individual must be obtained prior to collecting his/her personal data; rights of the individual to seek legal remedies for misuse and or unauthorized accessed to his/her personal data must be guaranteed”.

    This was the submission at the two day seminar/Colloquium of the African Academic Network on Internet Policy held at IITA, Ibadan recently.
    The Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy, (ISGPP), was the host institution of the African Academic Network on Internet Policy – a multidisciplinary problem solving Think-Tank.

    The theme of the two day seminar which started on Monday was, ‘Privacy and Security: Building the Evidence Base and a multi-stakeholder action base for Personal Data Protection in Nigeria’. It was revealed at the seminar, that most African countries including Nigeria do not have data protection laws.

    At the panel sessions, five primary concerns around the collection of the use of personal data both online and offline in Nigeria, they include,  the use of personal data may be incompatible with the purpose for which it was collected; individuals have no rights in relation to the collection, use and storage of their personal information; Nigerians are not offered adequate opportunities to consent to or opt out of data collection; there is limited to no transparency around the processing of personal data and there is limited information available around how this personal data is used and stored, leading to greater risk of a personal data breach; children are exposed to privacy risks online and often lack the legal capacity to give valid consent and may unknowingly disclose personal information to online platforms due to the appealing nature of their visual content.
    In his opening remarks, the Executive vice chairman of ISGPP, Dr. Tunji Olaopa said that African continent is touted as fertile ground for Netpreneurs, Mobile institutions, increasing use of technology and leveraging the internet to address developmental challenges.

    He added that, with the exponential increase in the use of personal information by businesses in technology age, data protection has become such a defining compelling agenda for priority attention in many countries worldwide. Olaopa emphasized that it is high time that Africa aligns itself with this global movement by coming up with sufficiently strong and intelligent data protection policy to drive the growth of the African Digital Economy.

    While giving a brief overview of the African Academic Network on Internet Policy, member of the steering committee, Dr. Temitope Aladesanmi said that the formation of the group was as a result of the poor and low level of African voices specifically to Internet Policy and governance. He explained that the European Union General Data Protection Rule (GDPR) would come to effect May 2019 and as such, it has significant impact for some local organizations who are in business with the EU maybe required to conform with the standard.

    “One of the direct output of the main conference was the imperative of the need to begin an immediate discourse with respect to data protection and security in Africa.”

    According to Co-creation Hub Nigeria,  Emmanuel Okochu, said that the biggest challenge in Data Protection in Nigeria is that most users do not have a detailed understanding of positive sides of data protection entails.

    “The people you seek to protect are the ones who don’t understand why they should be protected. When you try to explain to people how dangerous it is to keep posting every thing about them online”.

    Several representatives came from other African including, Nigeria, South Africa, Mauritius, Kenya, Ghana, Code voir to mention a few.

    According to Tope Ogundipe of Paradigm Initiative said; “it is dangerous to exist in an environment where you don’t know how your information is used. It is possible you are put under surveillance without any legal framework”.

    Dr. Lolade Shyllon of Faculty of law, University of Pretoria, suggested that targeted national interventions and advocacy should be dependent on accessibility to ongoing or future national processes for the development of laws and policies on the protection of personal information.

    Interventions could involve technical guidance for states to ensure proposed laws adopt a balanced approached with human rights consideration, assistance with amendment of laws and policies or addressing implementation challenges”

    Panelists and speakers at the events were, World Wide Web foundation, Nnennan Nwakanma, Former director, Data Protection commission Ghana, Teki Akuetti Falconer, Partner Webber Wentzel Okyerebea Ampofo-Anti, Douglas Oyango, Google Policy Lead, Sub Saharan Africa, Titi Akinsanmi, Tope Ogundipe, Barbara Imaryo, Research manager, Research ICT, Africa, Enrico Calandro to mention a few.

  • Tunji Olaopa, a scholar and a public servant

    Text of the Introduction of Dr. Tunji Olaopa, Keynote Speaker, “The Yoruba Nation and Politics Since the Nineteenth Century: A Conference in Honour of Professor J. A. Atanda” Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, October 9, 2017

     You do not need to have been paying a lot of attention to notice a trend of gaudy and ostentatious play of humility among some Nigerian political officials. Here and there, you hear a politician, safely ensconced inside a bullet-proof vehicle or a private jet he has procured to protect himself from the wrath of the people whose salaries he has not paid for six months, describing himself as “the public servant,” or “the servant of the people,” or even “the chief servant.” With loud campaign posters and other visual materials, these people who have conferred upon themselves an appellation of service make a showy declaration of their servanthood, even if the gravity of the task they have appropriated eludes them.

    Today, ladies and gentlemen, I want to show you someone who exemplifies the objectives of public service; someone whose education, career, and public service is a manifestation of the true reality of public service; someone who has dedicated his life and his intellectual efforts to public service even though he does not walk around with a signboard announcing any and every one who has the good fortune to encounter him that he is invested in such a moral duty to God and to country. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Dr. Tunji Olaopa, the public servant extraordinaire.

    Let me start by saying that in my life I have had the pleasure of working with many people on a countless number of projects. These individuals, one can say, are hardworking, have a spirit of excellence, and are entirely committed to a noble cause with a zest akin to religiosity. Dr. Olaopa, today’s keynote speaker, is one of them. In fact, he stands out from the pack. I have a lot of things to say about this impressive man and if I were you, I would grab a drink because this is going to be a long ride. There is a great deal about Dr. Olaopa that can be unfolded at an august gathering such as this one but  time will not permit us. However, I shall try to maximise the little time that I have to describe a few things that set him apart, not just as a theorist and a career public servant but as a practitioner with class and distinction. Talking about Dr. Olaopa entails a careful navigation of the history of his life, his career, his public service, and how all these strands of his personal history tie up into a distinguished life of service to the public.

    Dr. Olaopa’s tertiary-level education from first degree to Ph.D. has been about two interwoven subjects: political science and public administration. He started his education in Awe, in Oyo township, on the wings of his mother’s sacrifices and discipline, and ended up in the University of Ibadan for his first and second degrees. From there, he proceeded to obtain his doctoral degree in Public Administration at the Commonwealth Open University in the United Kingdom. Right after his first degree, Dr. Olaopa began to work with public research institutions from which he gained invaluable insight and experience and which further propelled him to the upper echelons of civil service administration in Nigeria. He has been the Chief Research Officer, Policy Analyst and Speech Writer at the Nigerian presidency; Assistant Director/Secretary of the White Paper Panel for Nigeria’s 1995 Ayida Public Service Reform with desk responsibility for implementation; Coordinator, Education Sector Analysis and Head, Policy Division, Office of the Minister in the Federal Ministry of Education; Deputy Director/Head, Technical Secretariat, Reform Strategy Team, Management Services Office. He was also the Director of Programmes, Bureau of Public Service Reforms; Special Assistant on Reforms to the Head of Service of the Federation on Public Service Reforms; Director, External Linkages & Reforms Department, Office of Head of the Civil Service of the Federation; and Director, MDAs Department, Bureau of Public Service Reforms. He has been a permanent secretary several times in the State House in Abuja, in the Federal Ministry of Labor and Productivity, and in Youth Development.

    From that summary of his career, one thing is evident: this man has spent his life in service to the country, Nigeria. He has built a magnificent repertoire of knowledge and skills in governance, and institutional analysis and development; public sector reform and restructuring; design and management of civil service reforms; administrative reform strategies and change management; policy analysis, sector diagnosis and strategic planning; research design and review; community mobilisation and management of communication strategy; preparation and supervision of technical assistance projects; capacity-building needs and impact assessment and learning/knowledge management; and the list goes on. His devotion to working for the public good is not simply a matter of pursuing a career. It is an attitude that is embodied in him and that is why after leaving the federal civil service, Dr. Olaopa co-created an institution, the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP), to harness his vast expertise with that of others to further his lifetime goals of engendering efficiency, productivity and reform in the Nigerian civil and public service. He currently serves as the Executive Vice-Chairman of this ground-institution. ISGPP, by the way, is a think-tank that is devoted to research, analysis, and teaching. The organization focuses on issues of governance, public administration, public policy, and other critical issues that are needful for the development of the country. The ISGPP is composed of egg-heads, researchers, and consultants who are dedicated to divining ideas germane to boosting governance and public policy making in Nigeria. Dr. Olaopa’s work in ISGPP is part of his commitment to deploy his education and experience in the public sector in order to find the intellectual resources that can support public management and administration, promote good governance and improve the quality of policy discourse and its administrators in Nigeria.

    A prolific academic and researcher, Dr. Olaopa has published 12 major books on governance and public sector reforms. He has written 23 monographs, and he has dozens of publications in scholarly peer-reviewed journals. As a syndicated columnist, Dr. Olaopa has worked tirelessly to push policy ideas on various topical issues to the public. There are times when I log into several Nigerian media websites in a single day and I find Dr. Olaopa’s well-researched articles on different subjects published in each of them. I marvel at his commitment to public education and intellection, and I admire the zeal he puts into all these activities. When I said at the beginning of this segment that Dr. Olaopa represents the best of public service in Nigeria, I meant it because you are looking at someone who has given himself entirely to the cause of raising the bar of public administration in Nigeria and he has never missed an opportunity to apply his intellectual resources to achieve this honorable goal. He does the hard work of extensively researching every issue he writes about and delightfully advances deeply pondered solutions to the Nigerian dilemma. He is untiring and his optimism that real change is possible motivates people like us who, weighed down by the burden of Nigerian reality, find ourselves occasionally descending into cynicism and despair.

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I can speak from now till tomorrow and I will still not exhaust the depth of my admiration for Dr. Olaopa and his steadfastness towards the ennobling task of understanding the questions posed to us by governance in Nigeria and providing the answers to not only enlighten the public, but to boost the quality and professionalism of government administrators. His goal is to work towards guaranteeing the paradigms of reforms – at cultural and institutional levels—that will enhance development and national transformation while breeding the morale and attitude vital to sustaining our gains. Dr. Olaopa continues to search for those ideas and visions that can be sown into our political culture to activate the processes of social engineering, national transformation, and global competitiveness. If Dr. Olaopa’s vision sounds too ambitious, know that this is because his learning and career has imbued in him the faith that we, too, the children of this country called Nigeria, can reach the Promised Land. He believes that our society can deploy the force of intellection, philosophy, and ideology towards public administration to generate paradigms of political and social productivity that are vital for our growth as a country and as a people.

    Ladies and gentlemen, even though I have a lot more to say about Dr. Olaopa I shall have to stop here. I have more in my mouth and even a lot more about him in my belly, but time will not permit me to say everything I know that needs to be said about this public servant who exemplifies the very best of public service. If anyone alive today is deserving of providing a keynote address at a conference honoring a great mind, public servant, and human being par excellence, Professor J. A. Atanda, it would be none other than another great mind, public servant and temperate human being. Therefore, please help me welcome to the podium this crème de la crème of intellectual excellence, Dr. Tunji Olaopa.

  • Tunji Olaopa and the joys of purposeful learning (2)

    Our founding fathers, particularly Chief Obafemi Awolowo, placed premium on the role of western education in development and enunciated and implemented policies designed to liberate large numbers of their people from the strangle hold of illiteracy and ignorance. The Western Regional government’s free education programme, under the inspiration and leadership of Awolowo as Premier of the region in the First Republic, was the most audacious and path-breaking initiative to make affordable education available to the vast majority of the people. Not only did this vision of democratizing education lay the foundation for the perceived edge enjoyed by the South West in the socio-economic and political development of the country, it spurred the Northern and Eastern regions to strive for competitiveness in this critical sphere. But free education, for Awolowo, was not just a campaign slogan or a tool for political propaganda. Giving his rationale for prioritizing mass education, Awolowo once declared with characteristic pungency: “The crucial point, which I want our rulers, planners and official advisers to bear in mind, is that man is the sole dynamic in nature, and that accordingly, every individual Nigerian constitutes the supreme economic potential which this country possesses…Therefore, other things being equal, the healthier his body and the more educated his mind, the greater will be his morale and the more efficient and economical he becomes as a producer and consumer”. Unfortunately, this rather overly materialist and instrumentalist notion of education in Awolowo’s political philosophy has overshadowed his other insights on the subject, which reflect and demonstrate an appreciation of Dr. Tunji Olaopa’s adumbration of purposeful education as an all round, lifelong process that transcend the narrow boundaries of formal learning and instruction. In a lecture delivered at the Centenary Hall, Ake, Abeokuta, on Monday, 22nd January, 1973, titled ‘As a man thinketh’, Awolowo advocated not just the proper nourishment and nurturing of the physical body but also the continuous cultivation, through formal and informal learning, of the objective and subjective or conscious and unconscious phases of the human mind.

    While Awolowo recognizes the indispensability of the relationship between a living pupil or student and a living teacher in a formal, structured learning process, he also stresses the importance of informal learning by the individual both through the observation of nature as well as in interaction with other fellow human beings in society. In the statesman’s words, “The motto of a school of practical psychology in Britain is ‘mens sana in corpora sano’ – a sound mind in a sound body. This maxim, in my view, epitomizes the essential and cardinal purpose of education, and should be the fundamental basis of any educational policy that can be regarded as sound and utilitarian”. One of the definitions of education accepted by Awolowo is helping the individual “to evolve an integrated personality”.

    But then, what constitutes a sound mind or an integrated personality? Here, Awolowo and Olaopa are on the same page. Indeed, Awolowo’s insights help us to apprehend better Olaopa’s articulation of the imperative of consciously and deliberately encouraging learning as a lifelong process that includes formal training in a specialized discipline but also encompasses the sustained cultivation of ethical consciousness, broadness of perspective and horizon, tolerance, compassion and a high sense of individual and moral responsibility. As Awolowo explains, “All the functional attributes of the subjective mind can be summed up in one word – THINKING. In other words, any scheme for the instruction, cultivation and development of the subjective mind must be designed to make the pupil or student THINK – to think constructively, rigorously, scientifically and morally on objects and subjects which are, in every respect, beneficial both to himself and others.

    This is to say that all the attributes of the subjective mind must be developed with the aim of employing them not for self-regarding ends alone, but for ends that are certain to benefit the thinker and others as well. ‘Love thy neighbor as yourself’ is, therefore, not just a religious tenet; it is also one of the laws of the development of a morally constructive subjective mind”. Awolowo, in my view, concisely encapsulates Olaopa’s thesis of joyful, healthy and productive learning in one word – love, which is the very antithesis of the greed and self-centeredness that undergirds the ‘excessive materialism, nepotism, corruption and aggressive selfishness’, the prevalent ills of our contemporary society that provoked Dr. Olaopa’s book. If you learn to truly love your neighbor, you will not covet or steal his or her property or loot society’s common patrimony to the detriment of the public good.

    You are unlikely, motivated by love, to want to criminally accumulate billions in cash and physical assets thus retarding the development of the society of which you are a component part. The thinking, morally conscious and sensitive individual that Awolowo believes will be the product of the right type of education, will continually ask himself four critical questions outlined by Olaopa that can empower him to reconnect with the human essence, “Who am I? What is my purpose in life? What is my role in society? How should I relate to others?” The ‘educated’ individual who does not constantly engage in this kind of lifelong introspection cannot involve into what Olaopa describes as “the TOTAL PERSON – that is a person who not only knows but is also able to act well; someone who combines knowledge with virtue…a person whose knowledge and skill are infused with moral and social dimensions”. There is no doubt that our educational institutions understand this very well because the certificates for which their graduates qualify are awarded purportedly for ‘learning and character’.

    Given the state of moral decadence and ethical famishment in our society, a condition of collective putrescence which even most first class products of our educational institutions have been unable to transcend, the character side of the equation is certainly grossly deficient. It is obvious that the acquisition of specialized skills for professional practice must only be complementary, not an alternative to, the cultivation throughout life of the requisite wisdom for healthy, useful and constructive citizenship. The author aptly quotes Dr. Waziri Junaidu who avers that “I cannot see how being experts in say geography or physics or a given language alone can produce an honest, disciplined and considerate good citizen, if the expert has received no injection of noble and lofty ideas pertaining to his duties to his fellow countrymen and to humanity at large and to his self criticism, his accountability, etc”. Dr. Olaopa identifies five factors that militate against the institutionalization of the kind of all embracing education he advocates in our society.

    These are the practice of politics as the no holds barred pursuit of power devoid of moral purpose; the persistence of underdevelopment and the associated pervasive poverty that helps to magnify crass materialism; declining social values that diminish the possibility of civilized living; religious bigotry that promotes human degradation and exploitation to the denigration of true spirituality and, lastly, the crisis of values in our education that discourages “the balanced growth of the total personality of man through the training of man’s spirit, intellect, rational self, feeling and bodily sense”. To confront and transcend this debilitating condition, Dr. Olaopa argues that a leadership re-orientation that de-emphasizes material accumulation as the measure of achievement and self-worth and elevates more ennobling and enduring values is imperative.

    This can, however, not be achieved, he contends without the emergence of a critical mass of the citizenry determined to organize and actively work towards reclaiming and liberating our country from the flourishing ills that obstruct the actualization of the country’s caged potentials. In a no less insightful and educative foreword to the book, Professor Tony Ghaye, Director, Reflective Learning – UK, offers useful tips, citing his own personal experiences, on how the individual can move from the perception of learning as a painful experience that involves laboriously cramming the head with facts to be regurgitated at examinations, to embrace learning as a fulfilling and joyful enterprise indispensable for a truly successful and maximally productive life. As he put it, “I remember feeling I had to cram everything into my head. It was painful! And then, when the exam was over, I felt the relief of deleting it. What I had learned was disposable. I could get rid of it”. Ruminating on such issues as learning as emotional labour, why some people learn better than others, how to learn with others and learning to trust, Professor Ghaye prepares the reader to enthusiastically embrace Dr Olaopa’s vision of becoming ‘a reflective lifelong learner’.

  • Buhari to ministry: Develop ICT revenue potential

    Buhari to ministry: Develop ICT revenue potential

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday directed the Ministry of Communications Technology to work harder to fully develop the revenue-generation potential of Nigeria’s information technology sector.

    Speaking after receiving a briefing from the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Dr. Tunji Olaopa, President Buhari also directed the ministry to bring forward for his consideration and approval, all pending proposals for the development of the country’s IT sector which require the approval of the Federal Executive Council.

    Buhari in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said: “Where you don’t need EXCO approval and you are not in breach of the law and will not lose money, you can go ahead.

    “Now that oil costs less and we are contending with its theft, we have to move to areas where we can realize revenue quickly.”

    The President welcomed the plan by the ministry to use post offices across the country for IT and financial transactions especially in the rural communities, saying that he was happy to hear that “we are recovering the post offices from rats and rodents.”

     

     

  • Tunji Olaopa, Ojetunji Aboyade and Nigeria’s crisis of underdevelopment (2)

    Mr Tunji Olaopa was no doubt motivated by his own patriotic love for scholarship and country to publish his September 9th tribute to commemorate the birthday anniversary of Professor Ojetunji Aboyade, one of Nigeria’s most eminent men of letters. It was this same labour of love that must have compelled Dr. Olaopa to write his 1997 biography of his intellectual mentor and role model simply titled: A Prophet is with Honour: The Life and Times of Aboyade. Surely, Olaopa could have chosen to exploit his close contact with Aboyade to seek to do a hagiographic book on some of the military top brass holding public office at the time. That would have been surely a more lucrative enterprise. But Olaopa places more value on the life of the mind than on material accumulation of temporal utility. To be fair to Olaopa, he is too intellectually honest to be oblivious of the human frailties of Aboyade. In his words “…when we attempt to come to terms with the biographical profile of Aboyade, the man, and Aboyade the scholar, it is difficult not to perceive the image of a human being, with all the expected human imperfections, who struggled against all odds to make a difference that is not less historic”.

    Reading Dr. Olaopa’s biography of Aboyade many years ago, one of the things that struck me was the depth of reading that Aboyade had to do in history and social anthropology before being awarded his doctorate degree in Economics. This, for me, illustrated vividly that the economy is deeply rooted in a given polity and society and a clear knowledge and understanding of the latter is a necessary condition for mastery of the former. Yet, many economists, not excluding Professor Aboyade, tend to see the discipline as an esoteric one in which only the initiated have the right to comment or make an input into economic issues and policy. Thus, Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu, Minister of Finance during the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida, wondered how even Awka market women could have the temerity to contribute to a debate on whether or not Nigeria should obtain an IMF loan and adopt the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP)!

    It would appear to me that because of his genius in the realm of economic theory, Professor Aboyade was often rather impractical in his approach to matters of public policy. For instance, when the Murtala/Obasanjo regime enlisted his expertise in devising an acceptable revenue allocation formula for the country, the report of his committee was found to be too technical to be of much practical utility! The late Professor Bade Onimode also explained how excessive technical elitism had negative implications on some of those Development Plans in which Aboyade was a leading architect. In Onimode’s words, “The process starts with the conception of planning as a technical exercise requiring the expert skills of petty bourgeois economists, capitalist-oriented bureaucrats and similar elitist elements. This excludes other professional groups like sociologists, geographers, agronomists, political scientists and engineers in what should be a multidisciplinary process at the technical level…Consequently, the fundamental character of planning as a social process involving all social and political groups in the country, is ignored”. Thus, Onimode argues, the democratic character of planning is negated and it has been difficult to mobilize mass support for Development Plans in post-colonial Nigeria.

    Another public policy issue on which Professor Aboyade’s expert advice was sought was on the wisdom of going ahead with the proposed Metro-line project for Lagos. The project had been conceived by the administration of Alhaji Lateef Jakande in the second republic. Mobilisation fees had even been paid for the contractors to move to sight. Before the project could proceed, the military had struck with the Buhari/Administration regime assuming power. The regime heeded Aboyade’s advice that the Metro-line project was not feasible and promptly cancelled the contract. Of course, the statutory penalties for breach of contract had to be paid but, more importantly, the development of Lagos was set back several decades as inflationary spirals made it impossible for successive governments to actualise the project.

    Another area in which Aboyade’s expertise was called upon during the Babangida regime was on the question of banning the importation of Wheat. This ban was purportedly to stimulate local Wheat production, increase economic self-reliance and bring about a fall in the price of bread. Many military governors trooped to Abuja to collect money for local wheat production saying that their soil had been found fertile for wheat production. It all turned out to be a huge hoax and an avenue to siphon public resources into private pockets. Yet, on December 13, 1991, Chief Alfred Rewane had written a letter to Professor Aboyade in the latter’s capacity as Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee. In the Chief’s words, “I am also informed that you have been a relentless supporter of the ban, although you as an economist must be aware of the great havoc it has caused and continues to cause in the industrial sector of the economy and in the commercial life of the nation, not to mention the immense distress it is causing to poor families in Nigeria.” Unfortunately in the school of economists like Professor Aboyade and the late Milton Friedman, it may sometimes be necessary for the vast majority to suffer in the best interest of economic growth. Yes, once the nation grows and is wealthy, there is no harm in the poor continuing to wallow in their misery.

    Another issue on which Chief Rewane publicly and vehemently disagreed with Professor Aboyade was on the devaluation of the Naira and the introduction of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). Aboyade was an enthusiastic supporter, even a key architect, of the devaluation of the Naira and other components of SAP. When on Friday, 26th September, 1986, announced the introduction of both SAP and the Second-Tier Foreign Exchange Market (SFEM) for the floating of the Naira, Chief Rewane’s response was characteristically pungent, “As my friends and I discussed the implications of the government’s announcement, I expressed the view that the devaluation of the Naira was a recipe for disaster and that within five years, the Naira would be worth less than 20 per cent of its existing value, leading to the possible collapse of the Nigerian economy. I reminded them of a standard economic argument that that devaluation of the national currency is best contemplated where the nation’s economy depends largely on the export of manufactured products for its foreign exchange earnings, and where devaluation is considered appropriate to ensure the competitiveness of its manufacturers.”

    Well, in the final analysis, Chief Rewane was proved resoundingly right. Nigeria till today is yet to recover from the havoc that SAP wrecked on the economy and this, unfortunately, is a key aspect of Aboyade’s legacy to Nigeria as Chairman of the intellectual think-tank that oversaw the implementation of SAP. And this is why I cannot agree with Dr. Olaopa that Aboyade’s mission “was to bring Nigeria to the acknowledgement of her historic destiny, and to point her in that direction without the benefit of wielding power.”Aboyade wielded considerable informal/intellectual influence under IBB. Unfortunately, he helped point his country in the wrong direction. All the same he remains a great Nigerian hero and we can only pray that his soul continue to rest in peace.