Protocols,
Honorable Minister of the
FCT
Honorable Minister of
Information and Culture
Chief of Army Staff
Permanent Secretary, MFCT
Chief of Staff to the
HMFCT
Director, FCT Archives
and History Bureau
Distinguished Ladies and
Gentlemen
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
I gladly accepted the
invitation to make this presentation partly because of my perceived personal historic
linkages to the FCT, in many regards, and more emphatically how the FCT
Archives and History Bureau successfully captured the theme for this year
commemoration of Nigeria’s Independence Anniversary, the 57th, amidst the many
narratives challenging us as a country. As a political scientist and peace
building practitioner, with strong roots in national security and defense
management, I salute the courage of the Bureau in translating the identified
problem of contemporary Nigeria into a positive language. This in my opinion
will ease our interrogation of the national question and facilitate our
engaging in a meaningful conversation that can produce effective information
sharing and proactive communication for joint problem solving by all stakeholders
in the Nigerian project.
Our theme aptly acknowledges
the fact that we have come to some form of crossroad in Nigeria.
However, it is quick in
acknowledging that there are positive experiences, legacies and opportunities
we can as a people take advantage of to move in the right direction for
integrated national development and growth. Nigerians, as citizens, have
inherent cognitive, latent and potent capacity, as the human resource
components of the geopolitical entity to harness and galvanize available
resources within the context of realistic arrangements to forge the synergy required
to integrate nation building with lasting legacies if only we can learn from
the success stories of our forebears and national icons. We must therefore improve
upon the national capacity proper documentation and sharing of the information
data on the milestones achieved by individuals in our institutions and
structures, tiers or arms of government, even as we attempt to celebrate our
country as an entity.
Ayokunle Fagbemi
graduated from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, 1987 with a Master of Science
degree in International Relations (Study of Nigeria’s Military Statecraft). His
first degree, a Bachelor of Science in Political Science, 1985, (writing on the
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) is from University of Benin, Nigeria. From
March 2005 – April 2008, amongst others, he served as a member of an organ of
the African Union, the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (AU-ECOSOCC); an
active participant in the ECOWAS Peace
Exchange Forum and a
committed member of the West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF) served as the
Coordinator for Nigeria (July 2008 – August 2009). He has local and international
working experience is from governmental and non-governmental sectors in
research for program planning and project management, broadcasting, monitoring
and evaluation, preventive peace building, governance, development planning and
financial management, personnel management and development, capacity
strengthening, post-conflict peace building, coordination and implementation of
projects and programs. He has acquired considerable Civil Society based
experience as a development worker with a strong interest in preventive
peacebuilding. As a Conflict Mitigation Specialist with interventions to
promote sustainable peace, his prowess in Early Warning Early Response
Mechanism within the West Africa sub region is worthy of note, accounting for
his serving as Consultant to the GIZ sponsored ECOWAS Study on the introduction
of National Early Warning Mechanisms and Systems for Member States (August 2011
– May 2012). A seasoned facilitator cum researcher Fagbemi undoubtedly has
participated practically in conflict analysis and peacebuilding activities in
Nigeria and some other African countries including Bourkina-Fasso, Cameroun,
Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Senegal, South Africa and
Zambia.
CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS
There are two major
concepts in the theme of my presentation and our commemoration. They are PRIDE
and DESTINY. It is instructive to note that the theme seeks to emphasize our
reflecting on them as individual concepts or jointly for emphases from the premise
of the collective, shared vision and joint ownership. For brevity and
simplicity, I am taking the casting of my definition of the two terms from
Microsoft Encarta Dictionary (2009).
PRIDE connotes elements
of “satisfaction with”, that is, “the happy feeling experienced with or for having
or achieving something special that other people admire”. It connotes a “sense
of appreciated value” with a corresponding “level of respect for existence,
efforts, or achievements”.
In some senses, it may
depict the “feeling or acknowledgement of superiority and probable, in the not
too complementary frame, the display of a haughty attitude, often
unjustifiably, of being better than others”. In the animal kingdom, it
represents a “group of lions”: usually consisting of up to a dozen related
adult females, their cubs and juveniles, plus from one to six adult males”.
DESTINY refers to “a
preordained or predetermined future based on apparently inevitable series of
events” in order to achieve some inherent (inner) realizable (latent) purpose
of life at an appointed time. It is contingent on “a force or agency that
predetermines what will happen”.
To the discerning, these
two terms are very instructive on how we emerged and where we are as a country.
In addition, they should equally help us discover and chart how we can safely
proceed into the desired future as a resilient people for sustainable
integrated development and growth.
Nigeria is doubtless a
creation of the British Colonialists; initially as an economic concern but graduated
into a political economic system with administrative constructs and interfaces
for political control and governance. The sustained existence of Nigeria should
remain a source of pride to the British for many reasons including the
retention of the nomenclature Nigeria unlike some other African states like
Zimbabwe (from Rhodesia) , Ghana (from Gold Coast), Benin (from Dahomey),
Democratic Republic of Congo (from Zaire), Burkina Faso (from Upper Volta)
amongst others.
To the patriotic Nigerian
nationalists who secured independence without recourse to armed struggle,
Nigeria is a source of pride. To the political and military actors who have
participated in the post-independence administration of the country Nigeria is
a source of pride. For the citizens the exploits in the field of sports,
particularly football, athletics and volleyball have continued to generate
bonding sources of pride. The role of Nollywood in projecting Nigeria has
remained a source of pride.
Interestingly, when
reflected upon through the prism of being a Pride of Lions, Nigeria has remained
a source of positive inspiration and source of pride for those who care to see
things positively. Lions are renowned as being ferocious, highly competitive in
terms of territorial control, but never eating the other. They mutually respect
set boundaries and terms of peaceful coexistence. It is from this perspective
that the Federal and State Governments along with citizens (individuals and
groups) need to learn.
In terms of destiny, we
appear ordained to remain together as a people but require a lesson from the
pride of lions. I hope that the positive slant of the theme of the FCT 2017
Commemoration of the 57th Independence Anniversary of Nigeria would contribute
to our seeing things differently in the country as we interrogate and encourage
meaningful dialogues to discuss the Nigerian project.
Honorable Ministers, the
recent agitations and sociopolitical developments in Nigeria accentuated by the
existence of social media have helped to rekindle and refresh in Nigerians
about the historicity of the country. I am very glad that the responsiveness of
the Federal Government of Nigeria has led to the reintroduction of History as a
Subject into the Educational Curriculum. It is that spirit of proper
documentation and articulate historical rendition of facts, I believe must have
motivated you, Mallam Musa Bello as the Honorable Minister of FCT, to promote
the FCT Archives and History Bureau to prominence at a time like this. I
commend your visionary leadership and sense of responsibility in this regard. I
am convinced that with your knack and commitment to research and proper
information management you are making provisions for the adequate resourcing of
the Bureau as a one-stop research facility in the FCT.
NIGERIA AS SOURCE OF
PRIDE AND COLLECTIVE DESTINY
Honorable Ministers,
Chief of Army Staff, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have come to observe
that most discussions on the future of Nigeria or the security and law enforcement
interventions on the agitations for a better Nigeria appear skewed in approach
and methodology. That is, without due considerations or situating it correctly
that Nigeria exist primarily as a geopolitical space and expression populated
by human beings, male and female, young and old who, in fact, are social beings
involved in multidimensional and multivariate interactions across multiple
strata! Often times, we reel out positions and data devoid of articulate considerations
on how they actually translate to or affect the citizenry as human beings. The critique
by pundits equally tend to forget that those in government and the security and
law enforcement operatives are human beings like them with feelings. It is high
time we begin to hold our conversations with and as human beings in focus;
handle our budgetary appropriation discussions within the context of citizenry,
per capita, impact. I intend to present the major buzzword in Nigeria today,
Restructuring, from a personalized perspective.
Earlier on, I noted my
perceived, but factually real, historical linkage with FCT and the theme of our
commemoration. It is interesting to note that today marks the commencement of
my thirtieth year of being resident in Abuja, FCT. I resumed in the Federal Public
Service exactly twenty-nine years ago yesterday, on 04 October 1988. I got
married from here to my heartthrob and lovely wife Dr. Ifeoma Udolisa, as she
then was, some twenty-six years ago. We have had our three children born in the
city of Abuja. The first two guys, they are men now, at the Wuse General
Hospital where my wife
served as a Medical Doctor before moving to the State House Medical
(Annex) Center where we
had our daughter eleven years ago with a thirteen and a half year gap after her
brother. From my name and my wife’s maiden name, it is clear that we are a
cross culture couple.
My father by patriarchal
descent hails from Temidire Ekiti, of the EgbeOba Land, in current Ekiti
State. My mother from
Ibadan, Oyo State even though her mother, my maternal grandmother, hailed from
Ilesha, Osun State. I am married to my heartthrob, Ifeoma, parented by two Pharmacists,
her father hailing from Alor, Anambra State and her mother from Agbor, Delta
State.
I know of another family
whose patriarchal lineage is rooted in Imo State, the mother being from Akwa
Ibom but married to a woman from the Okunland of Kogi where her father is from
with a mother from Bauchi. They are with children, a boy and a girl and live
here in Abuja as well. I am concerned, as a family man, on the need to situate
correctly the dynamics of the new Nigeria and concept of Nigerians as citizens
with an emergent collective destiny. I have now resided in Abuja, FCT for three
decades. The Nigerian landscape is replete with these cross culture family scenarios
and citizens settling in places other than their primary places of origin and
our children go to school in educational facilities of comparative advantage
for the courses they want to pursue. We can only imagine the background of the
women our sons will marry or the identity of the husband for our daughter
should they meet their lifetime partners on the university campus as we met.
I am concerned about the
grave realities of the continued poor and/or wrong handling of the inherent
defects in our beloved Nigeria because some of the issues have led to series of
agitations against what is presently obtainable. Significantly, stakeholders
often perceive the issues to revolve around the skewed nature, character and
practice of federalism in Nigeria. Our dysfunctional participatory democracy
has accentuated the dynamics; leading some actors to openly express themselves
while others are doing so discretely under the radar because they want to be
politically correct in public domain. The covert expression of contrary views
does not augur well for our thriving participatory democracy. It drives the opposition
underground and often allows for the easy undermining of the government of the day
by disgruntled elements who continue in government as co travelers. I do not
need over emphasizing the issue; the APC being the beneficiary of the
recalcitrance of then PDP led Federal Government to the people’s views and
expressed desires for effectiveness in governance service delivery. The APC
took advantage to introduce “Change”; enlisting citizens shared vision and buy
in. For observers like me, we are not happy with a development that is trying
to box the APC led FGN into a corner, portraying it as being insensitive and
non-responsive.
Let me attempt situating
the Nigerian story well. During the tenure of the PDP, from the year 2000 15,
the global system agreed to implement a development agenda called the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). At the expiration of the set period, Nigeria
could not meet any of the set targets. The then FGN often saw agitations,
contestations by the citizenry from a politicized perspective and failed to act
proactively. Painfully, the APC led FGN is exhibiting some form of reluctance
in engaging the citizens in any meaningful conversation on issues stakeholders
of the Nigerian project are raising. The APC led FGN is however becoming
sensitive to the agitations, particularly the clamor for restructuring.
Ordinarily, the current attitudinal disposition should not be. For those of us
who are taking pains to connect the dots, it is clear that majority of the
issues highlighted by proponents of restructuring fall within the framework of
what the seventeen (17) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have defined and
clustered into 169 targets. The clock for the realization of the SDGs, which
started in 2015, is ticking away and the probability that we may not achieve
the set SDGs in Nigeria is high if we do not situate them within the national
contestations! We urgently need to mainstream the achievement of SDGs into
every aspect of our national life.
With the achievement of
the goals, development and dividends of democracy would have been widespread
and agitations would naturally be unnecessary. We as a people and government should
therefore attend to the agitations quickly and comprehensively through
effective communication, along with active listening skills.
From my remarks thus far,
you would have observed that the strength of my argument is on the need for us
to interrogate the contemporary debates on the future of Nigeria from a
perspective that seeks to highlight the humanity in Nigeria with focus on the
citizenry. A citizenry-focused orientation requires effective communication
between the government and the governed and within each subset. The art of
effective communication requires a great deal of the elements of the “7Cs of
Effective Communication”. They are Clarity of message,
Concise to save the time
of sender and receiver, Correct in facts, figures by conveying all facts
required by the receiver, Consideration for the audience and their requirements,
Concrete by being definite and Courteous or respectful of parties engaged in
the dialogue.
In addition, there are “7
Key Active Listening Skills” which the Nigerian system can, must and should
benefit from to make significant progress together. They are first,
Attentiveness; second, Avoid communication apprehension by asking open-ended
questions – do not foreclose the dialogue, relax the sender to expose the real
core of his/her communication. Third, Ask probing questions – to the extent that
if the “Onion Model Analysis” is deployed you can get to the core of the issue
of agitation that is being communicated. Fourth, Seek clarifications to avoid
ambiguity; fifth, Paraphrase what you have heard; sixth, Be attuned to and
exhibit empathy reflecting the feelings of the other; and seventh, Summarize to
revalidate and assure that you have captured the essence of the communication. It
is clear from the foregoing that the contemporary issues plaguing the
Nigerian-state have suffered most devastatingly from poor communication and
lack of active listening skills. The Effective Communication Clarity Concise
Correct Consideration Complete Concert Courteous Attentiveness Avoid
Communication Apprehension Paraphrase Clarifications Ask Probing Questions
Empathy Summarize governments of three tiers, the three arms of government and the
citizenry are guilty of the charges of poor communication and lack of active
listening skills. The messages emanating from the government sources or citizenry
flying across the social media, published or transmitted through the
conventional print and electronic media, we observe are laden with barriers to
effective communication. The barriers include elements of Filtering, Selective
Perception, Emotions, Language, Silence and Information Overload or Complex organizational
structure. Technically, therefore, Nigerians are not engaged in any meaningful dialogue
based on effective communication. As a participatory democracy with elected representatives
who supposedly maintain constant consultations with their constituents Nigerian
legislators at all levels, using the communication framework of analysis, must
reflect the views, wishes and aspirations of the people at all times in their
deliberations and voting patterns. The inability of legislators to listen to
receive feedback or act on views from constituents is partly responsible for
the high turnover of legislators at elections.
Honorable Minister of
Information and Culture, Sir, we cannot continue in what now appears to be the
multiple dialogue communications of “the deaf” with “the dumb” where both are unwilling
to adjust based on the 7Cs earlier enumerated and practice the 7 Keys of
Listening. I am glad you are here and the instrumentalities of Governance
Information Management Systems rests within your purview. You possess under
your watch, the capacities of the Nigerian-state to inform and gather feedback
to ensure that Nigerians can exercise their fundamental human rights on freedom
of communication even as you gather data for feedback analyses and proactive response
planning and deployment. For example, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) is statutorily
empowered to gathered feedback for governmental actions. The report so
generated is currently tagged Pulse of the Nation and done fortnightly, that
is, every two weeks. I had the privilege of being the anchor of its precursor,
the National Mood Report, produced such significant weekly reports to the
extent that it then earned NOA membership of the Joint Intelligence Board
(JIB). The NOA feedbacks should have helped in passing the message back to FGN,
Defense HQ and the Army HQ on the need to change the code names for the ongoing
military operations as genuine national security and defense management
exercises. Thus enhancing Civil – Military Relations the way Operation Lafiya
Dole (Peace at All Cost) is in the Northeast. May I suggest, that Operation
Python Dance should change to Operation Udo Diri (Let there be Peace); and
Operation Crocodile Smile changed to Operation Alafia (Peace).
In essence, it is our
considered opinion that since Nigerians possess the legal and moral capacity to
express themselves through “Agitations” and “Protests”, what we require is for
government to step-up its capacity for engaging in feedback data gathering,
analyses and processing for proactive responses planning and deployment.
“Agitations” and
“Protests” are legitimate expressions of democratic fundamental human rights that
are within legal and policy frameworks that provide limitations to these rights
and respect for those of others. Since the freedom of an individual ends where
the right of the other begins, we equally do not expect those in government to
become complacent when a group infringes upon the rights of others or threaten
them. Furthermore, they are platforms for making demands by individuals and
groups should serve as the substructure bases for the nation-building superstructures
through constant negotiations, consensus building cum compromises that should lead
to equalizations of issues and variables by equity for unity. In other words,
the renewed clamor for restructuring, recalibration and/or reorientation of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria remain democratic. Mutually, all stakeholders must
allow all categories of the citizenry to express themselves as legitimate
contestations are valid push or pull factors for the mitigation and the
transformational change of the Nigerian-state to that which we can continue to
be proud of, even as we see it as our collective destiny.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
The levels of our
integrated interdependence and collective communal coexistence are at the levels
from which we can easily activate mutual understanding, respect and empathic
assessment of issues based on equity, justice and fairness. In order to achieve
this, we require proper documentation, adequate and prompt sharing of
information, articulate gathering of feedback data for prompt analyses and
processing for proactive responses planning and deployment. It is in the light
of the foregoing that I wish to appeal for the Federal Government of Nigeria’s reconsideration
of the stance on the ongoing restructuring debate. Nigeria’s continued existence
is our collective responsibility for which we must engage in meaningful
dialogue and communications. The steps in this direction should include
appropriate agencies of the Federal
Government embarking upon
the following:
S/N DESCRIPTION PROPOSED
TIMELINE ACTION BY
1. Study Group on Current
Agitations for Restructuring Nigeria to collate, aggregate and articulate citizenry
views and perception on way forward, particularly the 2014 Conference
2. Citizenry Mobilization
and Engagement for Confidence Building and Attitudinal Reorientation /
Behavioral Changes i.e. for nation building as a stable, virile and consensus
seeking integrated Nigeria. Presidential
Directives to National Orientation Agency (NOA), News Agency of Nigeria,
Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR) and National Security
Adviser to engage some Civil Society Organizations; allowing for coordinated
International Development Partnership support for other CSOs/NGOs on the same
programmatic principles for wider and deepened reach
3. Corporate Social
Responsibility Briefing Notes and Reports as part of academic and research contributions
to nation building emanating from in-house (university communities academic
dialogue sessions) October 2017 – January 2018
Presidential Directives through the Federal Ministry of Education and the
National Universities Commission to the Universities, Faculties of Social Sciences,
Law and Research Centers etc.
4. Mass Production and
Circulation of the Report of Study Group for wide distribution and stakeholders
interrogations for appropriate feedbacks to the Federal Government.
January 2018 ?
Presidential Directive to the Federal Ministries of Information / Education
5. Collation of Feedbacks
on Study Group Report February 2018 / Interior, NOA,
ONSA and IPCR Inter-Party
Advisory Council (IPAC), Special Adviser to President on Political Affairs
National Assembly Members State Houses of Assembly Members Study Group Task
Team
6. Consideration of
Report and Development of FG White Paper on Study Group Report March 2018
Executive Council of the Federation National Council of State
7. Government White Paper and Implementation Plan
on the Restructuring of Nigeria
8. Appropriate
Legislations by National and State
Houses of Assembly March
– April 2018 ? Executive Council of the Federation National Assembly State
Houses of Assembly
9. Issuing of Executive
Orders on the administrative components on the
Restructuring of Nigeria February
– May 2018 ? President, C-in-C executive Council of the Federation
10. Signing of Legislations
into Laws including Amendment of the Constitution
April – May 2018 NASS
State Houses of Assembly and President, C-in-C
11. Amended Constitution
in force June 2018
National integration is
possible and achievable! Nigerians are speaking; the leadership must listen and
act responsibly. Nigerians must behave wisely respect constituted authority and
comply with proactive proposals of government in accordance with the legal and
policy frameworks. Let us keep Nigeria as the continued source of our
individual pride, collective destiny and genuine peaceful coexistence. We must
attain the set SDG goals; meet all the earmarked targets to facilitate
Nigeria’s integrated national development and growth as the bases for improving
our national pride and collective destiny.
I thank you for
listening.
Ayokunle FAGBEMI
E-mail:
ayokunlefagbemi@yahoo.co.uk
Thursday, 05 October 2017
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