Op.Ed

OPINION

Ugwuanyi/Mbah and sustainance of good governance in Enugu State

By Luke Mgboh

On his assumption of office in 2015, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi aptly dedicated Enugu State to, “The hands of God” and true to this solemn dedication, he anchored his administration on the concept of the “common good” as propounded by St. Thomas Aquinas, the Italian Dominican friar, priest and philosopher.

The concept of the “common good” in its original sense, encompasses the protection of life, preserving the state and promoting peace. According to its broadly accepted conception, the common good indicates, “The sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.

In Ugwuanyi, Enugu State has attained these conditions. It is a fact of experience that under him, the charge for the common good has been pursued to satisfaction as the administration has devoted itself to a four point policy thrust of enhanced employment generation, enhanced social services, massive rural development, security and justice.

In the spirit of the above thrusts, the administration has since engaged in massive recruitment of workers in the state. Statistics from the office of the Head of Service indicated that as at 2021, over 1000 traffic officers, popularly known as MOT and over 1000 Forest guards, all between the ages of 18 to 35 years, had been recruited into the state service. What is more? The administration not only cleared arrears of salaries and allowances of workers inherited from the previous administrations, but went on to introduce the payment of the 13th month salary, something that was unheard in the governance of the state until now.

The same positive drive is replicated in the education sector, where he has employed over 5030 primary school teachers and engaged over 1500 tutors through the State Universal Basic Education and the State Post Primary School Management Board.

In addition to these achievements comes the reconstruction and upgrading over 950 classroom blocks, equipping them with modern constructed lockers, chairs and tables in addition to enhancing incentives to teachers and other non academic staff. The payoff is self - evident as students from the state roared in flying colours in the 2021 results released by the West African Examination Council, coming overall best in the Federation with 93.9 percent pass ahead of Edo State with 93.5 percent and Benue State which came third with 91.7 percent pass respectively.

Ministries, parastatals and agencies in the state are not left out in the recruitment exercise and the benefits of the common good by the administration. Records show that no less than 3000 workers have been employed by the state government, despite the global and national economic reversal. This singular act has positively affected the economies of hundreds of families and has increased the money in the markets in the state.

Enugu State, no doubt, has experienced massive infrastructural renewal in the last few years. Dilapidated rural and urban roads have been reconstructed while new networks have been constructed. As at date, no fewer than 850 kilometres of road networks, including some abandoned Federal roads, have been either been constructed or reconstructed in the state.

It must not be forgotten that Enugu State has been considerably peaceful in the face of the diverse security challenges bedeviling the region. Apart from a few breaches, many of which were eventually cracked down by security agencies, the state could pass as one of the few havens of secured living in Nigeria, luxuriating in peace, fellowship and good neighborliness. Here, businesses are conducted unhindered and the security of life and property are preserved by the functions of the state.

Despite the successful pursuit of these agendas, Governor Ugwuanyi has not been unmindful of new ideas and innovations. That is, no doubt, accounts for the steady rise in the internally generated revenue of the state, which is a result of a successful mix of technology, diligence and honesty by the administration.

An empirical validation of these accomplishments is the harvest of awards, recognitions and honours that have been bestowed on the governor by several credible institutions and organizations within and outside, the most notable of which is the recent National Honours award conferred on him by no other person but the President and Commander- in -Chief of the Nigeria Armed Forces, Muhammadu Buhari. He was honoured for his outstanding performance in areas of education, health, infrastructure and human capital development.

Not long after this celebrated award, Governor Ugwuanyi was again called up to the big stage for another eulogy, where again he received,” The distinguished Award for State Judiciary Reform” from President Buhari at the recent Nigeria Excellence Award in Public Service (NEAPS) held in Abuja.

All these recognitions simply attest to the fact that Gburugburu , as he is fondly addressed, is working and is well beyond the reproach of his lame detractors. But beyond the trajectories of the outstanding performance and awards, one outstanding feature nobody can take away from him is his humane approach to life and to governance, which depict him as a man of higher integrity. Unlike most Nigerian politicians, he has absolutely rejected the Machiavellian’s theory of, “No morality in politics” and of his own free- will, elected to bestow a human face to all his policies and programs, thus standing him out as God- sent at a time of ardent adversary and transgression to governance in Nigeria.

Access to him is free, unhindered and relatively unchecked. His office as the Governor of the state is the office of the people of Ndi -Enugu, irrespective of rank, status or class, hence reducing barriers to dialogue, consultation and exchange of ideas in governance and short changing the obstacles of undue bureaucracy.

His devotion to duty is equally unprecedented and remarkable. A workaholic by every definition, he remains in office and on his duty post for as long as there is a file to attend to. The effect is that he is always there and ready to listen and to give attention to urgent state matters with dispatch.

One of the greatest legacies of Governor Ugwuanyi in the footprint of time and for which he would be well- remembered in history of the state is the choice of an outstanding and unblemished character as his successor. The emergence of Barrister Peter Mbah as the gubernatorial candidate of the PDP in the state, no doubt, promises to retain the pursuit of the common good of the people and fast forward the dreams of the state. Little wonder, it is well accepted by the people of Enugu State that,”With Peter Mbah, tomorrow is here”.

In conclusion, Mbah, an industrialist and former Commissioner for Finance, reassures the people at every facet of expectation and every point of intercession that Enugu State is indeed in the hands of God. His victory at the polls, come 2023, would amount to a victory for sustainable development, unparalleled growth and accelerated progress in the state as he has abidingly pledged to build on the achievements of Governor Ugwuanyi and tower the state ahead of its peers.

In his contract with the people of Enugu State, he declared that,” I will serve the people of Enugu State with humility and moderation, openness and inclusiveness, simplicity and forthrightness” and I think with this, he has said it all. Our tomorrow has come to stay.

Dr. Luke Mgboh, a Public Affairs Analyst based in Enugu wrote this piece.

The Land of Comedus

By Tony Osakpamwan Agbons

In the all-time literary classic, The Animal Farm, famed writer George Orwell painted a clear picture of a dire scenario of the power of greed, avarice, and communal disorganisation. It tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, hoping to create a society where the animals can be equal, free, and happy. As the plot thickens and plays out, the rebellion is betrayed, and the farm ends up in a state even worse than it was before, under the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon.

You may wonder why I am pulling out this allegory. Look no further dear reader. The Nigeria of today is no different from the Animal Farm. The human farmer in our case is legion. They are some satanic creatures and wicked constituents of our political class who have held the country down especially in the last two decades. These devilish venomous political elites are suffocating the ‘farm’. Like vipers they are snuffing life out of the millions of ‘humans’ on the farm – 133 million of them as at the last count by the National Bureau of Statistics in November 2022. As the report highlighted, these demographic hundreds of millions are ‘absolutely poor’. Nearly 70% of the Nigerian population are absolutely poor. No wonder we pride ourselves as the poverty capital of the world. Shame, shame.

Speaking with some friends last week as we analysed the above, the question on our mind was, HOW ON EARTH DID WE GET HERE? The answer is simple and yet not so simple. Successive governments at the local, state, and federal levels in Nigeria have failed to develop the country. They have failed to harness the enormous natural and human resources God Almighty has blessed the land with. Critical sectors – Education, Health, Agriculture, Transportation, Aviation, Power, Housing, Technology remain comatose.

A major catastrophe of our country is the contamination of the democratic process. More worrisome is the STATE CAPTURE (to borrow the words of the cerebral political economist/scholar, Professor Pat Utomi) by the dark minded political class. The propensity of our current political leaders to appropriate our collective patrimony and commonwealth to their pockets is earth shaking. These daredevil ‘inhuman beings’ live in opulence while those they are elected to serve live in abject penury. These inhuman beings are out again during this 2023 election cycle promising the ‘beaten people’ heaven on earth. They are the APCPDP sucking duopoly. There is thankfully a silver lining after the tunnel. Nigerians are being offered OBIdiently a different pathway to national rebirth and regeneration. The question however is, are Nigerians ready to take their destiny in their own hands? Are Nigerians going to once again swallow hook, line, and sinker the recycled lies of the political hawks holding down their necks and snuffing the life out of them.

For 16 years (1999-2015) the People`s Democratic Party, PDP superintended over the affairs of the land. With hindsight some will say now, those years were better. Enter, the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. Like Napoleon in the Animal Farm, they promised ‘change’ (2015) and ‘next level change’ (2019). Change indeed! Are Nigerians better now in 2022 than we were in 2015? I will leave you dear reader to carry out your own personal empirical analysis and decipher your answer. No ifs, no buts, ipso facto. Three months into the 2023 election campaigns, the stage is agog in the Land of Comedus. What a joke our beloveth Nigeria has become.

The first consideration in my cerebellum is what exactly do Nigerians want? Are we ready to change the status quo and make a departure from the current dilapidated political structures doting our landscape. By a divine arrangement, Nigerians are being offered a new menu of transformational leadership via the Obi-Datti ticket. It is a nutritious healthy diet ladened with vitamins, carbohydrates, proteins, minerals, fats, and oils in their right proportions. This menu is set to cure the current social-economic malnutrition in the land. Curing our socioeconomic Kwashiorkor and the reset of our style of governance at all levels is an urgent imperative. Failure to do so will mean our continued socio-economic loss of muscle mass, and an eventual implosion of the entity called Nigeria. Not sounding overly pessimistic, there already are ominous signs and symptoms of looming danger ahead. With the high level of unemployment among the youthful population, the higher level of insecurity and the highest levels of abject-multi-dimensional poverty in the land, it is only a matter of time before a sulphuric inferno consume our land. The dooms day is fast approaching if we chose to do nothing.

Looking at the campaigns of the frontline candidates for the presidency in 2023, it is laughable that it is same old, same old methods and techniques from the so-called establishment political parties – APC and PDP. It is the same old storyline and rhetoric. Long on talk but short on creative ideas, strategic plans and the how. It is the same name-calling, insults, and abuses of opponents as well as deliberate `dodging` of facing the real issues. It is comical that the APC `emilokun` presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in an attempt to play the ethnic and religious card, has inadvertently convoluted himself in a spider web. The Muslim-Muslim ticket of the APC is a dagger on the nexus of the central nervous system of project Nigeria. At a time, when the ethnic, tribal, and religious temperature is at fever pitch, the APC has shown a lack of respect to the religious sensitivity of the Nigerian state. Some may argue that it doesn`t matter if both the President and Vice President are Muslims. That is a story for the gods! It certainly does matter in a country like ours.

The Emilokun BAT certainly is topping the charts for gaffes in the Land of Comedus. The Nigerian people have never had it so comical. The comedy of errors have meandered from the `it is my turn rant` to `tia tia umbrelatta`, `God bless APCPDP`, `A town hall different from bala blu, blu, bulaba..`, `El Rufai changing a rotten situation to a bad one`, Niger Delta State and recently, to `Chatham House drama of Teamship` to mention but a few. Nigerians are stunned and wondering if Bola Tinubu has the physical and mental capacity for the office of President. The regularity of his gaffes has become one too many. Since becoming the APC flagbearer, BAT has been ‘dodging’ the independent Nigeria media, reputable ones for that matter like our darling AriseNews and Channels TV. Any Nigerian politician, aspiring for our top CEO job and capable of pouring aspersions on these two distinguished, leading media brands is a joker. Both AriseNews and Channels TV are unarguably the go to media in Nigeria at the moment. They are both not afraid to interrogate and speak truth to those in power and those aspiring to be in power. Both Television stations have done nothing wrong. They are doing their jobs excellently and professionally in line with global best practices and as the fourth estate of the realm.

A presidential candidate (no matter the level of self-entitlement) who cannot humble himself to attend a high-profile Town Hall Meeting and articulate his/her agenda to Nigerians and be interrogated by Nigerians is not fit for the highest office in the land. I stand to be challenged. Effective leadership all over the world is directly proportional to effective communication, engagement, and rapport with the people before and after assumption of office. Nigerians have been through this road before. The incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari adopted this same method. He evaded all attempts to make him take part in debates. Some may argue that nothing in our electoral laws makes it expedient for candidates to attend debates and town hall meetings.

Truth be told, any candidate unwilling to romance with citizenship in one-on-one Q&A discussions is definitely hiding something either from lack of content or due to cognitive deficiencies and decay. You can take that to the bank. To further rub salt on injury, the ‘spectacular’ display of ‘Teamship’ by BAT, in broad day light, at Chatham House, London is to say the least toxic. Dr Agbons is founder of the Institute of Good Governance @ www.twin2.org

PEOPLES DAILY, WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 21, 2022 COMMENT

Unmasking of a nation and the Chatham House charade

By Lamptay Oriakhi

Incidentally, one may never be able to fully appraise the shame and disgrace caused Nigeria in an event where Chatham House erupted into an uneasy applause with no tone of conviction at the instance of Nigeria as a subject matter. Eyes met with eyes and gazes met with gazes as a shameful and unexpected development unfolded before the world. From the unfolding cacophony, a handful of political ‘Hallelujah’ boys who appeared to be in on the plot began to clap and laugh loudly and their orchestrated but disgraceful action began to influence some other unsuspecting and noticeably surprised members of the audience. The laughter and applause rose to a crescendo. I sat on the edge of my seat watching this unfolding tragicomedy strip Nigeria naked. ‘This is Chatham House’. I whispered aloud.

Meanwhile, in another simultaneous show of shame; Just outside the Chatham House building, some alleged ‘stomach infrastructure’ crowd of supporters where having it out with another opposing group of political clowns in a laughable theatre of the absurd. This was happening in far away London. The subject matter was Nigeria, and the shameless, ignorant, and petty political actors were Nigerians. I felt the shame even though I was sitting alone in the comfort of my house watching this Nigerian political drama set in another man’s land. It was Monday the 5th of December 2022.

Chatham House is a reputable British institution of debate and dialogue that has played host to the best of human brains of this world. It is a centre where the vision of global leaders and shapers of ideas are espoused to the attention of our changing world. The likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Barrack Obama, Tony Blair are some of the iconic personalities that have unveiled visions and ideas as visitors to Chatham House. Suffice to state that what is common and consistent amongst the aforementioned leaders and many others is that they take responsibility for their visions, and they explain their ideas themselves. It has been the tradition.

On this inglorious occasion, Chatham House was playing host to Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a presidential candidate of Nigeria’s ruling political party (All Progressive Congress, APC) in the forthcoming Presidential election in Nigeria. Coincidentally, a presidential townhall engagement organised by Arise TV and some Nigerian mainstream media took place a day before with other leading presidential candidates in attendance except Tinubu who released a statement a day before that he would not be attending any such engagements by Nigerian journalists. While many reeled and pondered on the insolence and disrespect of the Nigerian people by Bola Tinubu who has consistently avoided engaging with the people, many awaited his chosen engagement at Chatham House the next day.

On the day, an array of highly acclaimed failed politicians as governors and national assembly members flooded Chatham House with Tinubu taking to the podium to unveil his supposed vision for Nigeria if he was elected President and Commander in Chief of the Nigerian state. Many Nigeria stayed glued to watch the event. It would be the first time he is noticeably engaging with journalist and people while fielding questions. It would be the first time many Nigerians would have some assessment of him and imagine him as Nigeria’s president.

Sadly, this Chatham House engagement by Bola Tinubu was a sham. It was one of those moments when one is not so proud to be a Nigerian. This was a global stage; where one expects to see a candidate who speaks as one who know the issues and is providing a well-articulated summation on how to turn around the fortunes of Nigeria. I assumed different positions as I listened to Tinubu. I listened as a Nigerian. I listened as an African. I listened as a westerner, and I also listened as a world leader looking to do business with Nigeria after the election.

Tinubu began his depositions with some air of applaudable articulation which was rather short-lived as his incoherence and inability to pronounce words set-in from his second sentence. Please remember that I was watching him as a Nigerian, an African, a westerner and a world leader. He continued his speech without depth but grammatical colourations that served no purpose to the issues plaguing the Nigerian people. Alas, some questions that required his intellectual sagacity and preparedness were thrown at him and I earnestly anticipated his response. To my amazement and the amazement of the moderator, he began to make mockery of the process as he deflected the questions to his surrogates to respond to. Chatham House in her 122 years of existence had never seen a thing like that. The charade continued and went on and on. Literarily, Tinubu did not answer the questions which are the core issues of the next election. Those questions on security, economy, climate change, bilateral collaborations etc were answered by people not on the ballot. Men and women regarded largely as failed politicians belonging to the political establishment that has held Nigeria hostage for more than 30 years.

As a Nigerian watching the show of shame, it looked normal as I was not expecting much from Tinubu. Watching as an African, I cringed and saw no hope for Africa’s growth if the largest black nation on earth decides to settle for this. Watching as westerner, it was like; ‘will Africa ever be serious by choosing leaders who can give them good representation?’. Watching as a world leader; I was quietly nodding my head saying in my mind ‘who is this again? can this people ever be serious? Chatham House? oh no’

Meanwhile, I must observe that the timing of the Chatham House engagement by Bola Tinubu and his team was an unacceptable affront on the Nigerian people. Nigeria is the major subject at play. Nigerian people are the people to be governed by the aspiring candidates. And Nigerians deserve the right to question the candidates for the people to make informed choices. Yet, about 10 weeks to elections, Bola Tinubu is the only candidate that has not engaged with the Nigerian Journalists on what his vision is for Nigeria. And he boasts of not giving himself to questioning by Nigerians. This is on top of the numerous displays of incoherence in his campaign rallies over the past weeks. His physical and mental incapacity has regularly been on display even during his highly controlled rallies.

Summarily, Tinubu is a true reflection of the Nigerian political story of the last 30 plus years. Chatham House/Tinubu engagement remains a charade that open Nigeria’s nakedness more to the world. That is even more felt when the entire media space has been filled with credulous APC and Tinubu supporters who are defending and justifying the failed outing in Chatham House, London. Meanwhile, some international journalists have expressed shock at what they experienced.

Finally, with all we have seen and heard, I agree with Tinubu and his team. They should not engage with Nigeria Journalists because the Tinubu/Shettima ticket is not an option in the next election. Nigerians must redouble their effort to do the needful to rekindle hope in this country and reignite confidence in Africa with our western neighbours taking us more seriously. Let’s look inwards….

Comrade Lamptay Oriakhi is a Public Affairs Analyst

Fellow gentlemen of the press, let’s retool in this digital age or become unemployable

By Isaac Asabor

There is no denying the fact that technology has altered the global information ecological unit by dislodging media and journalists from the exclusive role of editorial facilitation. The foregoing fact cannot be pooh-poohed as the Internet and social networks are fast giving audiences and media sources the opportunity to equally work and come across as Journalists, particularly on social media platforms. More detrimental to professional Journalists who have spent so many years building their journalism careers is that they now strive with nonprofessional journalists on social media platforms that have the capacity to define the public agenda in a much more immediate and global way than some professional journalists can.

Unless a Journalist has been living on Mars, he or she will be aware that Journalism as a profession is going through a bout of disruption, particularly from the perspective of the fast emergence of internet technology that is threatening enough to take his or her job. The concerns are not new. But they are now more exigent than ever before.

Today, a career in journalism is more than just writing, editing, and reporting. As gathered, not a few journalists who graduated from higher institutions a few years ago with a degree in mass communication or related fields thought that their degrees would have greatly improved their job prospects, but with the emergence of social media platforms and their attendant applications, particularly the YouTube and Tik Tok, it did not. It will shock anyone to hear that there are some Journalists in this computer-driven age that find it difficult to work with a computer or smartphone.

In Nigeria, some mass communication graduates, like yours sincerely, landed jobs in the field only because not a few newspaper publishing outlets are yet to fully immerse their operations in digital technologies.

Currently, most media entities are still producing news and broadcasting programmes using 19th-century technologies. Programmes which are companies’ biggest assets are still not digitized for easy access. Therefore, when there is breaking news, citizens on social media broadcast or publish it first.

At this juncture, it is expedient to clarify that this write-up is not meant to be a critique of media entities or higher institutions that offer journalism or mass communication courses but to highlight the fact that there is an urgent need to address media education and training in order to prepare graduates to function effectively in the digital landscape. In the American and European continents, students are taken through an array of courses that basically acquaint them with the introduction to the web and then deal with the basics of journalistic writing, not just from a web-centric viewpoint but with knowledge of media law and ethics, and then finally on how the internet functions with specific reference to how best to use social media.

The web-based lessons, no doubt, provide students with a picture of web-based journalism today, and also help them to understand how technology has changed media form and content, and how web-based stories differ from those in print. They are also taught the challenges faced by the media when it comes to making a profit in the internet age and the challenges by web-based journalists and by investigative journalism in particular.

Given the foregoing method of teaching journalism or mass communication in other climes, there is no doubt that such graduates will confidently hit the media with the skills of writing for the web. Not only by imbuing them with confidence, but the teaching method also helps them to understand how people read and negotiate content online and how to write in a way that is web-friendly, and how to organize their web content. The teaching method also put them on a better pedestal to understand the ‘inverted pyramid’ form used for news stories generally, and web-based content more specifically.

It is germane to note at this juncture that journalism as a profession has today gone beyond the age of writing. It is therefore not surprising that Journalists and student-Journalists on other continents are today taught to understand the scope and range of web-based citizen journalism and to appreciate how a website might be useful (and how to go about setting up one). It also helps them to understand the limitations of blogs, vlogs, and podcasts and how to set them up.

Still in the same vein, the teaching method helps them to have a more comprehensive idea about what is what in the world of social media and how to make the best use of it as journalists. Before considering interactive social media, the teaching method looks at Google and Wikipedia, then gives pen sketches of different social media options, suggesting how best to use them (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, and TikTok).

Without a doubt, the advent of communication technologies has revolutionized the way news and information are produced. This has caused participatory media to emerge whereby private citizens who are not journalists are involved in producing content and reporting news on social media, including blogs and podcasts.

With the ongoing disruption in the media sector, no longer do people sit and wait on major newscasts a few times per day, rather, they are kept up-to-date with news and information from around the world every second through social media.

Understanding the role of the media in society has become essential. Therefore, educational institutions and media organizations must invest in innovative training and education to reflect growth, and prepare professionals for the future world of work, specifically in the field of journalism.

As it is at the moment, it is apropos to encourage journalists to strive towards retooling themselves with digital concepts, social, data, web, mobile, digital business, analytics, data journalism, and internet history as not retooling is capable of rendering them unemployable in the field of journalism in the near future as media-related technology keeps advancing.

Against the foregoing backdrop, it is expedient to say that practicing journalists must be aggressive in their pursuit to acquire the knowledge and training that will equip them for media careers in the 21st century and beyond.

It cannot be denied that not a few universities and polytechnics may be experiencing challenges from outdated equipment and competent faculty in their efforts to change their curriculum, but at any cost, change must happen if they are to shape the careers of future journalists and affect the society as a whole.

In fact, the digital landscape is not to be feared, but to be understood and embraced. It is high time we embraced digital media education one student at a time. Be that as it may, fellow gentlemen of the press, Let us retool in this digital age or Become Unemployable.