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Sultan “Detains” Minister Over REBIRTH Nigeria
By Okey Ikechukwu
The minister simply complied when he, alongside other dignitaries present, were advised to first listen to the Keynote Lecture go for the group photograph on the programme later. The occasion was the 25th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Alumni Association of the National Institute (AANI). The venue was the auditorium of the National Institute for Strategic and Policy Studies (NIPSS). The title of the AGM lecture was “Template for Nigeria’s REBIRTH.”
He humorously said that he was urging the minister who is a Muslim to not go anywhere until after the lecture, because he is the Commander of the Faithful. The auditorium roared with laughter when the minister, the Governor’s representative and others announced that they would comply and be of good behaviour.
Then the Sultan said: “We all need to listen to this lecture and, particularly, to this speaker whom I read, hear about and listen to regularity on television. Just from the title of the lecture alone, I am convinced that it will be about what we can all do, to optimize the possibilities, fortunes and sustainable future of our fatherland. So, let everyone who is in hurry to leave reconsider because we all need to listen to this keynote lecturer.”
The speaker said that he was using REBIRTH, as an acronym for Re-inventing the Essence, Beauty, Integrity, Resourcefulness, Traditions and Honour of the Nigerian State. He explained that his notion of a template for national rebirth was an “ideas roadmap” predicated on the belief that the Nigerian reality of today can be changed, and that the nation can be ‘reborn’ if specific measures are taken by individuals, schools, Institutions of State, and the Federal, State and Local Governments.
He observed that to reinvent the essence of a land of diverse and interdependent cultures and economies is to identify and nurture what can still work for the nation in today’s world; with new narratives, new attitudes and new values. The drive for integrity will then manifest as a new resolve to adhere strictly to the basic principles of unity.
He said that his speech would go beyond problem enumeration to specific suggestions on how the politics, the economy, leadership at all levels, the people and the nation’s global profile can be improved organically. This would lead to a secure, more productive and forward-looking Nigeria; resting on sustainable development paradigms and responsible citizenship.
Then he submitted thus: “The human being is the primary resource of any nation. Nations are not made rich or poor by their natural resources, but by their “national” resource – which is human capital. It is this “resource” that can create a safe space for wealth creation in a livable environment. The merciless poverty in some states of the federation, and also in countries like Venezuela, Congo DRC and many other nations with abundant natural resources confirm my thesis.”
He drew attention to the fact that nations like Japan, the United Arab Emirates and Israel are where they are today in terms of development because of their highly developed human capital. Their current wealth, heightened national security and progress in the midst of the harshest geographical settings are all traceable to the quality of their NATIONAL resources.
He added: “Every new-born child is only a demographic fact and a potential citizen. The child acquires substantive citizenship by imbibing what the home, schools, vocational skills, and the accepted societal norms make of him. That is why we speak of child upbringing as citizenship education, in terms of socially accepted reflexes as the rubrics of social cohesion.”
He likened the nation to a human capital manufacturing factory, wherein values are the primary raw material for fashioning citizens. He likend our homes, schools, vocational training platforms, religious bodies and religious leaders, traditional institutions and economic engagements as “…the tools used by every human community throughout history to manufacture the product or “commodity” it calls citizens.”
He described parents, teachers, religious and traditional rulers, crafts masters and political leaders as “factory workers” every society uses for designing and putting out an “end product” it calls the citizen. Thus, it is our homes, the school system, our societal norms, the type of role models we promote, and the moral character of our leaders that determine everything.
Raising questions about the quality of Nigeria’s “factory workers”, he asked; “…how are they “processing” the children left in their care?” After a pause, he also asked: “What is the quality of their end products, in terms of employability, sense of propriety, responsible citizenship, character and personal grooming?” He asked further: “Why is there so much “market rejection” of the products of our human capital development factory?”
The speaker pointed out that we cannot create a stable, prosperous, inclusive and secure society without a culture of hard work, thrift, responsible wealth acquisition and management. He said that “National character” is determined by the behaviour of majority of the people and that we cannot say “what we want the world to believe about us”, despite what everyone is seeing and saying about us. Then he added: “Not so much of our noble traditional and cultural values of the past can be seen in the life we live today.”
Then, to drive home the nexus between citizenship, national resources and genuine development, the speaker went ahead to show the lessons we can learn from the story of national transformation exemplified by Finland. He explained how Finland, whose mainstay and major national preoccupation was agriculture, was radically transformed by good leadership and the simple business of improving the quality of its human capital. Aggressive education drive, the inculcation of new national values and the creation of a more enlightened national workforce was all it took.
Everything changed, as new learning and teaching curricula were created and it eventually became mandatory for all teachers to acquire Masters degrees. A knowledge upgrade was also facilitated for everyone in every field. Then the practice of having three teachers per class was introduced and Finland trained more teachers, until they met the target.
Of the three teachers in every class, two teachers focused on instruction while the third focused on students struggling with learning challenges. Inclusivity was the word.
Today, Finland has one of the best education systems in the world. Its national security network draws more from enlightened citizens loyalty and national consciousness than from military hardware. While some 47% of US teachers come from the bottom 3rd of college graduates, Finnish teachers come from the top 10%. This is the academic and skills stock from which doctors, astronauts, lawyers and the best scholars are produced all over the world.
The Finns know their “national interest”. What we call “law enforcement” is, for them, part of a general moral responsibility that starts from the home and permeates the entire society. It has all evolved into a collective national “will” dominating the aspirations of the citizens and every level of leadership.
The speaker pointed out that our dysfunctional human capital production line is a major problem; and that this fact alone explains why our human capital manufacturing plant is churning out easily-rejected products. He spoke of our millions of underemployed, unemployed and unemployable young adults who are not groomed to understand the concept of “National Interest”.
In speaking of national traditions and honour as elements of the REBIRTH template, the speaker emphasized the pristine tenets of the Nigerian Union and the needed adjustments to contemporary, and emerging, trends in global societal value evolution. He said: “Because human societies are primarily conceived as ecosystems for creating, maintaining and sustaining optimal social homeostasis, the Nigeria REBIRTH project is a Clarion Call for all Institutions of State to stand forth as “extensions” of the family; wherein they all act in loco parentis, by guiding, supporting, restraining, rewarding or punishing where necessary.”
That way, the system will not be producing more deviants, fewer responsible parents, fewer competent professionals, fewer craftsmen and fewer patriotic citizens. The system will also eliminate the distortion of values, the elevation of wrong role models, impunity and permissiveness, as well as the dissociation of leaders from the realities they are supposed to be dealing with.
The speaker added that the negative tooling of a generation as purveyors of banditry, cybercrimes and sundry fraud will end if REBIRTH is accepted, understood and implemented. He concluded by saying that once the problems of poor parenting, a faulty educational system, improperly groomed social demographic groups, the criminalization of the future generation and wrong role modeling are dealt with, the Re-inventing of the Essence, Beauty, Integrity, Resourcefulness, Traditions and Honour of our fatherland would have been accomplished.
He concluded his presentation with 13 specific recommendations and 13 implementation strategies for making each recommendation a reality. Amidst applause the Sultan, an ever present guest at any event that would add value to our nationhood anywhere in the country, shook hands with the speaker and cheerfully said: “Thank you and well done, Okey. That was very incisive and insightful indeed.” The minister and others concurred.
