“Why We Need to Do the Right Thing”

Mr. Mike Omeri, the head of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) spoke to Joshua Ocheja and Tomilola Amudipe about his signature programme and other issues

It is widely believed that the NOA operates more as the propaganda arm of government, rather than a re-orientation agency. What’s your take on that?

Well, if the NOA is described as the propaganda arm of government, what else do they want us to do? Be the enemy of Nigeria? But what I know and I insist is that and you can do a psychoanalysis of all that I have said since I came here and whether anything that I have said is contrary to what society wants and not. If you talk about railway, there are railways. If you talk about airports, go there and see first. If you talk about agriculture, go there and see what is happening. I challenge journalists who have interviewed such people who claimed that we have been compromised to do an analysis, to take steps to investigate and come out with a position.

I am an investigative journalist by training and if I see people doing investigation especially for information, I get excited. Yes we are compromised for good governance, we are compromised for Nigeria and we have no shame about it. We are compromised for patriotism and we love our country and we have no shame about that.  

“The Do the Right Thing” is your signature intervention. Why is such a campaign necessary?

We conducted a baseline study and discovered that every Nigerian wants and desires the right thing. Every Nigerian dreams the right thing but Nigerians are not working for the right things. So we thought we should come up with a charge for Nigerians. It is not a slogan but a charge to remind Nigerians that these right things that we talk about and need are a collective task and it begins with the individuals. Therefore it’s a call to action because there are so many aspects of values that we have neglected that are right and that we want. We have decided that we take them one after the other. For instance, a Nigerian may think that not planting tree is the right thing to do or throwing dirt on the road is the right thing to do. And because we are so accustomed to doing what is wrong, we think that what is wrong is right. So this campaign is to wake us up to the reality to what is right.

Can you share with us the roadmap and the success of this campaign?

Part of what we intend to do is to rebrand. As a fact we have rebranded the then WAI Brigade into Community Support Brigade. The idea is to have this and other such platforms in the communities spread out there and supporting people to do the right thing, reminding people about what is right and doing it always. But aside from that, we are also the campaign to the government and to public servants. Every civil servant knows that there are rules of doing what is right and therefore if we remind them through our patriotism and ethics roundtable, through our various conferences and workshops which we have signed a collaboration with the office of the Head of Service of the Federation, it will give us a mileage towards achieving what we are doing.

We are also working in the schools through our campus focus programmes because these issues that need corrections are in all aspects of our lives. So every organised group and some unorganised ones are our platforms and therefore we approach them with the message of doing what is right relevant to their sector. We have been to the markets, we have been to road transport workers, government offices, we have had executive business roundtable involving some agencies of government and we intend to continue with that. So in that way we hope that the message will sink in. But importantly, the Patriotism and Ethics First platform of the NOA is a roundtable model that is created by the agency in the states and within agencies of government. Using that method, we have 5000 or more roundtables going on in this country and we expect that it will grow. We hope to get Nigerians talking and listening because at the moment we do a lot of talking but not listening. So through this roundtable method, we hope Nigerians will listen and share experiences and we see it reflected in the display of values that we crave for.

What impact do you think this campaign will make?

Imagine for you, a day that you wake up as an individual and decide to report to work and do the right things. Imagine how it will turn out to be and if all of us choose to do what is right in our homes, workplaces and other social spaces and in interactions with people. Imagine the difference it will make in our lives. So a community that is doing what is right will reap the benefits of productivity and organisation. But cast your minds back for those of us who have experienced the past of Nigeria when government was never there, when little of government was known, when government was heard of as a distant phenomenon, how were the people surviving? They were organised around values. Nobody wanted to steal anything because it’s not a good thing to do so. What we are simply saying is return to values. So it is dependent and incumbent on us now to be the Sardaunas, the Azikiwes, the Awolowos and the Macauleys of Nigeria.

Some believe the challenges are deep-rooted. How do you factor that into the campaign?

I just visited the Universal Basic Education office and I am about to visit the TETFUND and other similar agencies and the education resource centres. What we are doing is calling for the return of the teaching of history. At least Nigerian history and the introduction of patriotism and civic education in schools because within these are the values. There exist 40 basic proven principles of character. And if you observe any one such as integrity, honesty, love for your neighbour, etc., you will make positive impact in the society. So in essence, we are taking the campaign to the primary schools using our local government model because we are spread in all the local government areas and the states. Our staffs at that level are engaging with primary schools and such institutions.

We are also in the secondary schools, universities and other tertiary institutions. We just came back from Kebbi State University of Science and Technology where we had the campus focus programme geared towards bringing back values to that layer of the foundation of individual development.

The NOA under your watch has been very active. Would you like to share with us some of your other interventions since assumption of office?

We have been active as a result of enthusiasm and belief that the transformation agenda will work this time. Yes we have quite a number of interventions that we have introduced like the campaign on environmental sanitation which is a collaborative effort with other government agencies. We also have the joint collaborative initiative on disaster mitigation and awareness. We embarked on advocacy and community awareness and so people will know the dangers of abusing the environment and building within disaster-prone areas etc. We also have the theatre for development which we use to dramatize issues, using the same people in the communities to interpret messages of government and it has been quite effective especially when we implemented the freedom of information public sensitization campaign in some communities. We have also the community interactive and engagement platform. We have been working hard to get a radio station that will essentially be reflective of the character of the agency itself, speaking to the communities in their local languages and giving these communities a voice. We need community radio stations to fill in the gap that the social space has created. So we are working on that and so many other initiatives that we have introduced which I cannot easily enumerate but I can say that with very little logistics support we are able to provide some made in Nigeria vehicles to our state offices and head office for operational purposes.

You mentioned the made-in-Nigeria vehicles. Do you want to shed more light on it?

We have been leading the campaign for the patronage of made in Nigeria products. We were the first to acquire made-in-Nigeria vehicles for official and operational use that are made in Nigeria because after ours, a lot of other agencies are beginning to patronise. The Federal Government has made it a policy to patronise a made-in-Nigeria vehicle and with the coming of the National Automotive Act, you can see that what we started as a little campaign, what the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment is pursuing as a campaign, what the transformation agenda has introduced is beginning to get the attention of Nigerians and everybody is involved in the process. Don’t forget that we just had a Made- in- Aba Fair in Abuja. It was fantastic and you needed to see what was on display.

What is the Neighbourhood Development Ambassadors Scheme about?

We have actually changed the name since then to Citizens Responsibility Volunteer Scheme. This is supposed to be a volunteer-based scheme to be located in the communities: people helping communities organise themselves, supplying energy, talent and education. It is a holding platform in the vision of the agency for those who are yet to be engaged or acquired any formal employment to be productively and positively engaged within communities and neighbourhoods so that they can add value and through that eventually discover that they can empower themselves from their talents within the community. So instead of sitting down and doing nothing, the scheme can be a worthy alternative and we intend that in the long run we would get the MDG Office and ITF and other agencies involved so that certain projects that can be implemented in communities can attract the labour of the Citizens Responsibility Volunteers. In that way you trap income within the community, you get multiple benefits because people will now respect, protect and use what they perceived to be their own creation in the communities. Our hope is that it will eventually lead to creating a people who will end up cooperating to build their communities.

How has the response been?

Well, we have not implemented any major programme yet because we are still at the training and advocacy stage. So people need to know exactly what it is and to be able to key into it. At the community level I have discussed with the young people and they are willing to be a part of it because they have signed up.