My Nigeria is a Nigeria exemplified by physical, artistic and cultural attractions with international appeal; a clean environment of aesthetic beauty and serenity; and affordable, accessible and quality goods and services. A Nigeria where there is security of life and of property. A Nigeria where I can go to sleep at night without the racket of my and my neighbour’s power generator bawling in the background.
Where is this Nigeria? It is a Nigeria in the mind of my future.
It is a Nigeria where our children and our grandchildren will be able to say of us: “the elders did well.”
Our Traditional Societies
In traditional societies, the elders are those to whom everyone drew to in search of wisdom, knowledge and guidance. My Nigeria is not devoid of such elders. My Nigeria merely needs the right form of governance and public administration, in character and content, willing to wage a true and fitting warfare against the ills of poverty, underdevelopment of mind and infrastructure; and social and economic demise.
The Future of Government?
What is the Future of Government globally and, as we bring it home, the Future of Government in sub-Saharan Africa? The Future of Government in Nigeria?
What can we do to redress our regress? What should we do to redress our regress? What will we choose to do to redress our regress?
It was only a few months ago that Barack Obama stood on the podium in Capitol Hill and gave his inaugural speech. The Future of Government to his mind involves a nation and government of risk takers – the doers and the makers of things:
“We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness. In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less…. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things.
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do”
All this we will do. That’s affirmation for you.
New Public Management
Perhaps what we should actually be asking is this: what can be the future of Government in Nigeria? Without doubt the future of Government in Nigeria must include the core values embraced in the ethos of new public management.
Recent developments in public sector management and reform from around the world shout out to us that contemporary governments will only attain credibility, development and expansion results if they readily embrace and demonstrate the following key features:
(i) Public Engagement;
(ii) Customer-focussed public service delivery;
(iii) A serious and compelling movement and drive from policy formulation to policy delivery;
(iv) Management for service effectiveness and results; and
(v) Joined up government
If that is what contemporary governments are currently doing, then the future of our government and public administration must be in substantively embracing and demonstrating all five of these features. It remains the burden and responsibility of our times. That burden and responsibility of the work that must be done demands that the government of the future must:
(i) Ensure that public services are fit for purpose;
(ii) Deliver services, quality services, that stakeholders actually want;
(iii) Meet the basic needs of society consistently and sensitively (here we have the notion of inclusive governance, the rights based approach to governance);
(iv) Transform the experience and contact of stakeholders with the public sector; and
(v) Ensure stakeholder satisfaction
Bringing It Home - My Nigeria
My Nigeria stands tall as a country filled to the brim with bright, intelligent and hopeful people. As a nation we are very proud and as a nation we are so very confident. Our resilience and ‘can do’ attitude is quite simply as astounding and it is even unbelievable. It is no wonder that the first black African Forbes billionaire is a Nigerian.
But our overall metrics on government and public administration have been the antithesis of this our enviable national character, and fraught with immense challenges.
It remains the responsibility of each and everyone of us, corporations, electorates, civil society, NGOs, the young and the old alike, to ensure that The Future of Government demonstrates and exhibits the positive externalities of this our national character - in our macro-economy, our public and civil service, and in our parastatal institutions of social development. Yes, we can.
Lessons from the World Economic Forum
Six metrics have recently been put forward by one of the councils of the World Economic Forum as the key determinants and propositions for the transformation of democracy and the transformation of government for the future:
(i) A digital Marshall Plan to take broadband to every corner of the world
(ii) The establishment of ‘digital brainstorms’ (I like that phrase) whereby knowledge partnerships between public/private/civil society are established and entrenched as deliberate, established mechanisms to ensure and secure citizenship and citizen engagement (a celebration of that most famous phrase: E pluribus, Unum – out of many, one)
(iii) A new accountability paradigm for business
(iv) Reinventing public service to achieve a networked government
(v) Rethinking and re-architecture of human capital of the public service
(vi) Creating the infrastructure for accountable government
If we accept these metrics, what they reveal and challenge us to do is to make the business of government relevant and valuable to the citizenry and each and every stakeholder; for indeed government is funded by the citizenry, mandated by the citizenry and instituted to realise dividends for the citizenry in terms of social and economic development; safety and security; and the freedom to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is the basic idea of government being a service to the people and for the people. It is no coincidence that government and public sector workers are known as civil and public servants.
Our failure to respond to this cry proffers grave danger that our governments and public sectors will be left even further behind as futuristic and responsive governments emerge and address each of these challenges highlighted here. The end result is a possible deep democratic, economic and social demise.
Nairobi, Kenya. December 2007
Far fetched? I certainly hope so, but I was in Nairobi, Kenya in December 2007. I marvelled at the apparent ease of democracy in this city one week before the Presidential and parliamentary elections. I was resident in Ghana at that time and had travelled to Kenya on business. I and my travelling companion hoped that Ghana would make Africa proud in exactly a year’s time when her people would go to the polls to give voice to their political opinion and preferences. Indeed, one year on, Ghanaians have proven that the Voice of The Citizen and democratic integrity lies at the heart of her public administration. But that is Ghana – my week long stay in Nairobi in December 2007 was the week that preceded the massacre of neighbour by neighbour.
Back home some weeks later, unbelievably I watched the ensuing events in Kenya from my TV screen. The message was loud and clear: there comes a time when, if the dividends of good governance and democracy are not evident in our societies, some will take to the streets. Rev Martin Luther King Jnr did so. Emily Pankhurst and the Suffragettes somewhat did so. And Zackie Ahmat of the TAC in South Africa is doing so. Our hope is that many other will join in their methods and advocate for democratic and inclusive politics, and responsive government via peaceful means.
THE Leadership Challenge - The Voice of the Citizen
But this leadership is our collective responsibility. No one person is born a leader. Leaders are created out of the choices they make and the challenges they chose to confront. Our government (and corporate and social leaders alike) will rise and emerge from the responses and reactions we the people persistently challenge and present them with in question and query.
The Voice of the Citizen and the stakeholder must be loud and clear in the Future of Government – indeed the Voice of the Citizen should shape the future of government. Accountability and responsiveness in the development of public policy; inclusiveness and integrity in the implementation of public policy; accountability and transparency in the evaluation of public sector programmes and projects.
These are the rules of engagement; and this is our hope. These are the notions alluded to in Rousseau’s Social Contract – and these are the notions which caution us against inviting the absolute authority of a sovereign as chronicled in Hobbes’s The Leviathan.
And it is here that there is room for all of us.
A consulting firm can demonstrate leadership in the articulation of a blueprint for the future of a government in terms of the transformation of the systems, process and people; inputs and outputs of MDAs; and similarly a law firm can demonstrate leadership in the articulation and collaboration with Government on those business laws that must be reviewed, amended and enacted to ensure that the legal environment drives the future that our economy and citizens need and want.
Likewise a civil society organisation can demonstrate leadership through the gathering of citizens and stakeholders alike for us all to discuss and debate where we are, where we want to be as a nation and chart the path of how to get there for and with our political leaders.
That is democracy.
That is citizenship, and
That is development.
There is room for all of us.
On the fringes of the anniversary of our nation’s fiftieth year after our independence from colonial rule, the optimism which drove a euphoric vision of an economically prosperous and politically stable future for our nation is now somewhat precarious. Our trajectory to date has been devoid of many of the core elements of economic prosperity and political stability. Today we are at the crossroads.
And yes, there is room for all of us. That we might truly have a reason to celebrate our Golden Jubilee in 2010
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