AS I was saying, ‘Even in South Korea, rated as No.5 in the world, in terms of budgeting and funding for research and development, the brand maker of Samsung, there is a separate Ministry of Knowledge Development apart from the Ministry of Education – all in a bid to use quality in education of their citizens and public servants weapon of country and global competitiveness.
What is more, the United States that often boasts of its exceptionalism in the world order, has been recorded as having subscribed to a scientific way of producing unknown geniuses for both public and private sectors.
In a ground-breaking work, David Plotz, a professor in 2005 wrote about how in 1980, an eccentric American millionaire launched a Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, intended to create a new generation of super-kids. Stocked with the seed of gifted scientists, inventors, businessmen and thinkers, including several Nobel laureates, the ‘genius factory’ produced more than 200 children before it quietly closed its doors in 1999. The book titled, ‘The Genius Factor: Unveiling The Mysteries of The Nobel Prize Sperm Bank hints at a fact that the project 1980, which traced some of the sperm donors could have produced the brilliant progeny that the founder expected –and that reveals why America has been producing more Nobel laureates and remains Number One in economy and inventions.
That shows clearly that you cannot make progress with a policy instrument that elevates the illiterate of the 21st century who Alvin Toffler, a futurist says cannot learn, unlearn and relearn wherever they are. Toffler says: ‘The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn’
Let’s continue on the way forward for a new public service:
Senior citizens need to speak some truths to power at this time that development is no longer a mystery but a well understood process that a fair number of countries have successfully undertaken.
What is more, the foundations for success lie in getting the politics right. After that important lessons learnt by other countries can be implemented.
As it is recorded in ‘Making Africa Work: A Hand Book’ (Mills, et al, 2017), Central to the turnaround of many countries, enabling them to implement pro-growth policies was creating a sense of urgency, a realisation that business as usual would lead to disaster.
Several Asian countries, including f Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan, were able to use their crises to create a narrative that allowed leaders to implement difficult policies and to explain why changes were needed. Leaders were able to show first that the state itself, protector of the current population, would be threatened if difficult decisions were not made immediately.
By implementing good policies, leaders will be able to convince their citizens that the sacrifices demanded would not be in vain but would, in fact, result in a better economy and society for their children because the government is a competent steward of the economy.
Experience in national planning highlights the fact that it is both possible and necessary to distinguish between cross-cutting and specific sectoral actions when planning reforms.
Moreover, despite being founded on solid analysis of the constraints, African reform initiatives are often characterized by sweeping, big-picture reforms with unrealistic goals.
There is a need to break these down into deliverable actions such as:
There has to be a premium on getting things done. To tackle national priorities, there needs to be a ruthless prioritisation that focuses available government capacity on delivering the essential elements of a reform programme on
Quality education for progress: there must be compilation of reliable education statistics to know where we are in the world of technology beginning with STEM subjects in post primary education
Opportunity for devolution of educational development as suggested by Adamolekun,(2022): The UBE Act 2004 should be amended or repealed and such responsibilities should be transferred to sub national governments.
Besides, the fact that only the National Universities Commission (NUC) and Joint Admission and Matriculation Board are setting standards and regulating about 266 universities of federal, state and private ones can’t work. The agencies were set up when there were only 12 universities.
There should be robust funding for education at all levels as a matter of priorities. When corruption is stemmed, funds saved should be available for remarkable investment in education including ICT infrastructure in universities: Google in 2018 took its AI Centre to Ghana when no Nigerian University was equipped enough to play host to the Centre because of poor equipment in Computer Engineering Schools.
There should be a concomitant opportunity for university autonomy, which has been legalised. There should be more serious meetings and elite consensus on how we can use education quality to produce our genius factories.
There should be focus on control of public finance so that political leaders can’t just waste and spend public funds arbitrarily on election petitions and other personal matters including purchase of real estates and investments.
For instance, how do we prevent members of the families of our leaders from hijacking procurements? What happened to the old policies of Permanent Secretaries as chief accounting officers?
How do our leaders get billions they allegedly pay big lawyers for their elections petitions?
When can the Public Procurement Council, a 2007 Act established be inaugurated? How can the senior civil servants in National Assembly reduce opaque accounting system there?
Another take away from this construct here is in the conclusion here:
The primary purpose of government in any modern state is goods and services delivery to the public and so the primary instrument of government for the service delivery is the Civil Service. Therefore, any reform should be capable of tackling bureaucratic delays and reduce opportunities for corruption as these are essential elements for setting up the business environment for success. Foreign direct investments will continue to be a mirage if we can’t produce ethical civil and public servants who can reduce opportunities for corruption.
There is a need to keep government costs (and overheads) low and match ambition with pragmatism, and growth will follow quickly as the examples of Ethiopian and Emirates airlines have shown around us in Africa and the Middle East.
This is why civil servants should be made to ensure that the implementation of the 2012 Oronsaye Panel Report isn’t what Shakespeare calls another ‘tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury again, signifying nothing’ after the report of yet another committee by President Tinubu.
So, the deliverables again:
The federal character principle should not trump merit if we are to lead the black race. The education sector must be reformed and well funded to be able to produce the best brains for the public and private sectors too.
Such institutions need autonomy and investment in a devolution that will allow them to prosper.
There is a need for reform of public finance management system; the office of the Auditor General of the Federation and the 36 States and Abuja should be made to work to prevent media trials that some anti-graft agencies do. If the Civil Service works as the old federal and regional ones, opportunities for corruption will be reduced.
There should be audit of the system to flush out corrupt officers from the system. But before I draw the curtain, what happened to the February 25, 2001 remarkable document called The Kuru Declaration, which set out to settle all the challenges that we have gathered here to discuss? Let’s revisit the declaration:
We Ministers, Special Advisers and Permanent Secretaries of the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, having participated at the 4th Retreat for federal Ministers and Permanent Secretaries, hosted by His Excellency President Olusegun Obasanjo at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, 23-25 February 2001 and having discussed, analysed and fully considered the new Orientation as proposed and presented by His Excellency, Olusegun Obasanjo, HEREBY DECLARED THAT:
(1) We subscribe to the New National Ideology, which is, to build a truly great African democratic country, politically united, integrated and stable, economically prosperous, socially organised, with equal opportunity for all, and responsibility from all, to become the catalyst of Black Renaissance, and making adequate all-embracing contributions, sub-regionally, regionally, and globally.
(2) We adopt the New Orientation as an agenda for: dealing with immediate and future issues of governance of Nigeria; Removing impediments to efficiency and effective implementation and execution of programmes initiated by the Federal Government; and Expeditious actualisation of Government objectives and vision of national renewal and re-construction.
(3) We rededicate ourselves and those who serve under us to the values of patriotism, honesty, hard work and diligence, merit and excellence, trustworthiness, personal discipline, tolerance and mutual respect, justice and fairness, love, care and compassion.
(4) We pledge to eschew corruption, slothfulness, nepotism, indiscipline, bitterness, prejudice and other manifestations of anti-social behaviour.
(5) We shall undertake a critical review of practices and procedures in every Department of Government, so as to rapidly increase their productivity and service delivery to the public;
(6) We shall foster a culture of efficiency in the management of funds and other resources; maintaining high standards of resource management; and reducing waste at all times.
(7) We shall efficiently supervise all Government Departments and Agencies, ensuring timely returns and reports, and undertaking regular spot-checks;
(8) We shall abide by the terms of the Code of Conduct, which we all have signed, as expression of our commitment to the crusade against corruption, and working closely with all relevant agencies such as the Independent Corruption Practices and other Related Offences Commission, the Code of Conduct Bureau and the Public Complaints Commission;
(9) We undertake to strengthen the partnership in working with the private sector, since this partnership translates to a better appreciation of the wealth-creating capacity of this sector, and the need for Government, through its various ministries and legislative processes, create an enabling environment for the sector to function efficiently as the major driver of the economy.
(10) We shall strive to strengthen and inculcate the culture of working closely and in consultation with the leadership of labour and Civil society organisations.
(11) We shall mobilise, involve and promote the interest of all stakeholders, namely, the society in general; since, in the ultimate, all decisions and actions of Government are aimed at the promotion of public welfare, there is also the need for a new attitude that has that welfare permanently in focus, as the only goal, and the economic well-being of all citizens, under unfettered freedom, is of cardinal importance;
(12) We shall design strategies and techniques of implementation for the New Orientation so as to ensure that the values being inculcated permeate all levels of management and staff”.
We can see that the demon we need to kick out is the one that has always prevented us from implementing policies that will define change. So, the nation waits for the public sector to help the present government to renew its strategy for development. And looking at The Kuru Declaration (2001) again, that should be the starting point.
Concluded!
Oloja is editor of The Guardian newspaper and his column, Inside Stuff, runs on the back page of the newspaper on Sundays. The column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.