As the outcome of the last presidential election gives Nigeria a giant stride into the comity of emerging democracies, and with President Buhari already striving hard to put the country on the global stage in human development and economic growth, more and more Nigerians will increasingly be looking up to the regime for solutions to the challenges of a rapidly changing world. It is a duty on the leadership, therefore, to meet and satisfy this legitimate expectation in a shared vision of a new Nigeria that will both grasp the extraordinary opportunities and face the huge challenges that lie ahead of her as a nation. To this end, the devoted activities of the president both on the domestic and international scenes since his inauguration have raised high hopes in Nigerians on his regime. These hopes are further re-enforced by the goodwill the President’s persona stimulated at home and abroad.
Against these hopes, however, is the reality of considerable challenges facing the President. In addition to insecurity, severe economic depression, unemployment, corruption, power shortage, energy and fuel queues, pipelines vandalisation and economic sabotage, insufficient and decayed infrastructure, weak financial base, low foreign reserves, huge debt status, poor international image, a dominantly illiterate and ignorant citizenry, among many others, they also, more importantly, include decadent elite groups determined to maintain the unjust status quo. The quick overcoming of these challenges is critical if the president is to make manifest the change he promised Nigerians.
It is a fact that things have deteriorated in Nigeria over the years, and in a rather rapid manner. Adversely affected in the process are our cherished traditional values of upholding truth and honesty, of hard work, respect for elders, and of being our own brothers’ keepers. Ethics had similarly crashed, as the issues of rightness and wrongness of our conducts and national ideals became distorted. Within this social metamorphosis, politics also altered its course, occasioned by bad leadership, as new political classes and power blocs have emerged with little or no regard for moral principles and traditional values. Increasingly, people’s attitudes and conducts are being conditioned less by ethics than by self-interest, and what is morally wrong has since become politically right.
Consequently, the country became bugged by a selfish and venal political class whose major strategy of remaining buoyant is to undermine laudable policies, actions and intentions of any peoples’ oriented regime; employing region, religion, ethnicity, and other primordial sentiments as readily available tools. The result is that a great number of Nigerians have long been manipulated to distrust sincere efforts by any purposeful leadership to change the prevailing unfair social order and evolve a new one in which the interests of the country become uppermost, and consequently hardly committed to supporting such leadership’s noble endeavours. This trend, unfortunately, will continue until the reforming regime initiates appropriate policies and actions to push through its intentions. Since I believe President Buhari truly intends to reform the system, then he must take the initiative so that by the end of his tenure Nigerians would be able to list more dissimilarities with the past than similarities in the affairs of the country. It is only then they will attest that indeed change has come to Nigeria, and that they are living in a new and better epoch.
Central to this initiative is imbedded in President Buhari’s integrity and character, which, if applied to his leadership style, can induce in Nigeria the appropriate qualitative change in the re-organisation of their productive forces for economic self-reliance and veritable political renaissance. His policy thrusts can create the opportunity for Nigerians to think anew, to decide how best to restructure their polity, economy and education, and to engineer social changes that would lead to a truly egalitarian, democratic and free society for a better and greater tomorrow.
What his government needs do to attain this goal is initiate a detailed National Orientation Programme. Given that the main aspect of our national malaise is attitudinal, for any social change to succeed it must necessarily contain a clear plan for re-orienting people’s attitudes. For without a clearly envisioned attitudinal change deriving from a fundamental re-appraisal of the Nigerian condition, any attempt to transform the country will predictably inevitably lose its bearings and fail in its mission.
Hence the urgent need for a vibrant National Orientation Agency, devoid of partisan politics, taking center stage and working hard to favourably engender people’s interest and support in the policies and visions of government. For example, the president has identified insecurity, unemployment and corruption as his major priority areas. Evidently, the resolution of these will enhance Nigeria’s material development; but to succeed, government needs a complementary in-built human-factor mechanism aimed both at orienting public attitude towards the understanding, accepting and owning of government’s policy thrusts, and conforming to the cultural environment of Nigeria within which the policies are applied. Yes, a safe, secure and peaceful atmosphere is indispensable for the attainment of any development, but as most of our security problems are a product of negative national socio-economic circumstances, it is imperative to adopt a two pronged multi-spectrum strategy in addressing these multifaceted security challenges. While the military prong is on-going, an aggressive tackling of the root causes of crime and security challenges such as unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, intolerance, extremism, injustice, real and perceived neglect and marginalization must be pursued. Yes, the government wants to rid Nigeria of corruption by prosecuting corrupt practices, but government needs to prevent people from being corrupt in the first place and make them patriotic so they can desist from looting and offshoring public funds.
All these entail enlightening the people on the evils of these vices to our national life, and clearly formulating a systematic and guided approach to the campaign for the implanting of the right attitude in them. In other words, government must orient the people on its reform policies, thereby carrying them along. Once this is done, then the people’s attitude towards life, society, the country and towards government will positively change, and their support for the leadership and its intentions will be assured. This then, in my view, is the critical defining issue in the success or otherwise of the intended change efforts of this administration.
Through the instrumentality of the National Orientation Agency, with its National, Zonal, State and Local Government structures, government should initiate and roll out a Comprehensive Ethical Reform Agenda (CERA) to orient the people towards the attainment of such envisioned higher national ideals. Given the urgency of the situation, and in order to reach out and achieve maximum effect, the agency should shoulder the principal tasks of initiating and directing the type of programmes, messages and signals capable of influencing public opinion consistent with the set objective of creating honesty and patriotism, and favourably garnering support for government policies. Also, for synchronisation and guidance, the agency may serve as the key organ through which government reform programme is launched and implemented. The primary goal here is to ensure the broadest appeal and national support for government policies and for the ultimate triumph of the Buhari regime in its effort to create a better Nigeria for us and for generations unborn. To attain this, the President should strengthen the institutional capacity of the National Orientation Agency and infuse into it core personnel with the necessary intellectual rigour and passionate commitment essential for the successful birth of the New Nigeria of Mr. President’s vision.
Accomplishing this feat, therefore, is as much important for the country as it is for the legacy of the president. It will mean that the president has succeeded in healing the land by bringing about the much desired but seemingly elusive dream of moving Nigeria into a modern nation-state capable of restoring the Pride and Dignity of Africa and Africans. President Buhari will thus go down in history as a most dominant figure in the life of the nation
Ref: http://www.leadership.ng/columns/449705/towards-attaining-the-promised-change-suggestion-for-mr-president
Against these hopes, however, is the reality of considerable challenges facing the President. In addition to insecurity, severe economic depression, unemployment, corruption, power shortage, energy and fuel queues, pipelines vandalisation and economic sabotage, insufficient and decayed infrastructure, weak financial base, low foreign reserves, huge debt status, poor international image, a dominantly illiterate and ignorant citizenry, among many others, they also, more importantly, include decadent elite groups determined to maintain the unjust status quo. The quick overcoming of these challenges is critical if the president is to make manifest the change he promised Nigerians.
It is a fact that things have deteriorated in Nigeria over the years, and in a rather rapid manner. Adversely affected in the process are our cherished traditional values of upholding truth and honesty, of hard work, respect for elders, and of being our own brothers’ keepers. Ethics had similarly crashed, as the issues of rightness and wrongness of our conducts and national ideals became distorted. Within this social metamorphosis, politics also altered its course, occasioned by bad leadership, as new political classes and power blocs have emerged with little or no regard for moral principles and traditional values. Increasingly, people’s attitudes and conducts are being conditioned less by ethics than by self-interest, and what is morally wrong has since become politically right.
Consequently, the country became bugged by a selfish and venal political class whose major strategy of remaining buoyant is to undermine laudable policies, actions and intentions of any peoples’ oriented regime; employing region, religion, ethnicity, and other primordial sentiments as readily available tools. The result is that a great number of Nigerians have long been manipulated to distrust sincere efforts by any purposeful leadership to change the prevailing unfair social order and evolve a new one in which the interests of the country become uppermost, and consequently hardly committed to supporting such leadership’s noble endeavours. This trend, unfortunately, will continue until the reforming regime initiates appropriate policies and actions to push through its intentions. Since I believe President Buhari truly intends to reform the system, then he must take the initiative so that by the end of his tenure Nigerians would be able to list more dissimilarities with the past than similarities in the affairs of the country. It is only then they will attest that indeed change has come to Nigeria, and that they are living in a new and better epoch.
Central to this initiative is imbedded in President Buhari’s integrity and character, which, if applied to his leadership style, can induce in Nigeria the appropriate qualitative change in the re-organisation of their productive forces for economic self-reliance and veritable political renaissance. His policy thrusts can create the opportunity for Nigerians to think anew, to decide how best to restructure their polity, economy and education, and to engineer social changes that would lead to a truly egalitarian, democratic and free society for a better and greater tomorrow.
What his government needs do to attain this goal is initiate a detailed National Orientation Programme. Given that the main aspect of our national malaise is attitudinal, for any social change to succeed it must necessarily contain a clear plan for re-orienting people’s attitudes. For without a clearly envisioned attitudinal change deriving from a fundamental re-appraisal of the Nigerian condition, any attempt to transform the country will predictably inevitably lose its bearings and fail in its mission.
Hence the urgent need for a vibrant National Orientation Agency, devoid of partisan politics, taking center stage and working hard to favourably engender people’s interest and support in the policies and visions of government. For example, the president has identified insecurity, unemployment and corruption as his major priority areas. Evidently, the resolution of these will enhance Nigeria’s material development; but to succeed, government needs a complementary in-built human-factor mechanism aimed both at orienting public attitude towards the understanding, accepting and owning of government’s policy thrusts, and conforming to the cultural environment of Nigeria within which the policies are applied. Yes, a safe, secure and peaceful atmosphere is indispensable for the attainment of any development, but as most of our security problems are a product of negative national socio-economic circumstances, it is imperative to adopt a two pronged multi-spectrum strategy in addressing these multifaceted security challenges. While the military prong is on-going, an aggressive tackling of the root causes of crime and security challenges such as unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, intolerance, extremism, injustice, real and perceived neglect and marginalization must be pursued. Yes, the government wants to rid Nigeria of corruption by prosecuting corrupt practices, but government needs to prevent people from being corrupt in the first place and make them patriotic so they can desist from looting and offshoring public funds.
All these entail enlightening the people on the evils of these vices to our national life, and clearly formulating a systematic and guided approach to the campaign for the implanting of the right attitude in them. In other words, government must orient the people on its reform policies, thereby carrying them along. Once this is done, then the people’s attitude towards life, society, the country and towards government will positively change, and their support for the leadership and its intentions will be assured. This then, in my view, is the critical defining issue in the success or otherwise of the intended change efforts of this administration.
Through the instrumentality of the National Orientation Agency, with its National, Zonal, State and Local Government structures, government should initiate and roll out a Comprehensive Ethical Reform Agenda (CERA) to orient the people towards the attainment of such envisioned higher national ideals. Given the urgency of the situation, and in order to reach out and achieve maximum effect, the agency should shoulder the principal tasks of initiating and directing the type of programmes, messages and signals capable of influencing public opinion consistent with the set objective of creating honesty and patriotism, and favourably garnering support for government policies. Also, for synchronisation and guidance, the agency may serve as the key organ through which government reform programme is launched and implemented. The primary goal here is to ensure the broadest appeal and national support for government policies and for the ultimate triumph of the Buhari regime in its effort to create a better Nigeria for us and for generations unborn. To attain this, the President should strengthen the institutional capacity of the National Orientation Agency and infuse into it core personnel with the necessary intellectual rigour and passionate commitment essential for the successful birth of the New Nigeria of Mr. President’s vision.
Accomplishing this feat, therefore, is as much important for the country as it is for the legacy of the president. It will mean that the president has succeeded in healing the land by bringing about the much desired but seemingly elusive dream of moving Nigeria into a modern nation-state capable of restoring the Pride and Dignity of Africa and Africans. President Buhari will thus go down in history as a most dominant figure in the life of the nation
Ref: http://www.leadership.ng/columns/449705/towards-attaining-the-promised-change-suggestion-for-mr-president
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