The events of the last few weeks following the announcement of the removal of fuel subsidy brought to the fore the angst of Nigerians against the government, its policies and programmes. In this interview with CHINYERE FRED-ADEGBULUGBE and SHUAIB SHUAIB, the newly appointed Director-General, National Orientation Agency (NOA), Dr. Mike Omeri, says that government is prepared to engage the people and carry them along in all its programmes.
YOUR APPOINTMENT HAS COME AT A CRITICAL TIME WHEN NIGERIANS ARE ASKING THE GOVERNMENT TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY WITH PEOPLE. WHAT ARE YOUR IMMEDIATE PLANS TO SENSITISE NIGERIANS ON GOVERNMENT POLICIES?
When I came into the agency, I noticed some of their challenges, most of which are not their fault. The staff have been trying their best; I like what I have seen in the staff but I think we can more. We can do better with what we do have, since we have new ideas and people are ready to work. All we need to do is to open our doors, to be receptive to new ideas and strategies and move forward. I hardly start anything without a strategy. I am a transformation strategist and I intend to employ that to the best of my ability in this endeavour.
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WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES YOU HAVE NOTICED ALREADY?
The challenges range from absence of operational facilities, they do not have vehicles and you know we have offices in 774 local government areas and the 36 states and then there are still key areas that I think NOA should be there as observers but we are not there. I think running a government is not exclusively one sided; we need to feed the Nigerian people with information coming from the judiciary, with policy issues and legislative issues coming from the National Assembly as well as the presidency. It is a democracy so the concept of our operations must be all encompassing and broad based. So these are challenges because the absence of our people in these areas makes it impossible for us as an agency to tell Nigerians at every point, what is happening to their government and what is happening to the mandate that they have given to their elected representatives.
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RIGHT NOW, ARE THE OFFICES IN THE 774 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS OPERATIONAL?
Yes, they are operational. Part of the challenges I discovered is that we pay N2,500 as monthly office running cost to all the local governments. This thing is not going to work because we expect a lot from the agency in those areas. For instance, they are supposed to file reports, undertake mobilisation and sensitisation activities within the local government communities. Now, how do you expect an office to operate with the sum of N2,500? It is not possible. But it is not that bad because we have fresh ideas on how we can make use of this bad situation, even without the resources. We cannot just sit down and say since there is no money, we cannot do anything. There are other things that we can do. That is why one of the things I want to do right now is to initiate a Neighbourhood Development Ambassador’s Programme. The essence is to engage all Nigerians who have something to contribute, irrespective of their circumstances or leaning. Whether they are employed or not but mostly we are going to target those that are unemployed. They will also include professionals, farmers, artisans and all of those in a volunteer set up in all the wards in the country. We will engage them to be providing services in their respective communities according to their competence and specialisation.
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THESE PLANS YOU HAVE WILL TAKE A LOT OF WORK. HOW DO YOU PLAN TO MOBILISE YOUR PEOPLE IN ALL THE 774 LOCAL GOVERNMENTS OR DO YOU HAVE SPECIFIC AREAS YOU WANT TO START WITH?
We have staff in all the local governments and we will begin to sensitise on the project among the people. We will begin by explaining how it will work and why it is necessary and also why they should accept it and be part of it. We will be going on advocacy visits; we will be talking and explaining like we are doing now. And by the time we go out in full, we will throw it open to Nigerians to come and be volunteers to this project and you are going to operate within where you live. The idea is that eventually, even the communities will see the need to begin to support these volunteer activities of their young and unemployed people. I know situations where communities will pay the police, the communities will arrange to buy drugs for hospitals and I hope to build a system that will eventually become one of these in this country. I want to see our young people who are not in school organising the communities to pay their taxes and to be responsive citizens. We are in this social contract, we have submitted ourselves to the government, let us also discharge the responsibility that goes with that contract. And in that way, we will be able to hold government responsible should it fail to discharge its own part of the contract to us.
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ARE THERE IMMEDIATE PLANS TO INJECT MORE FUNDS OR ARE YOU STILL GOING TO OPERATE INTO THE AGENCY WITH THE N2,500 MONTHLY IMPREST?
It is a matter of planning and appreciation of the issues. What I intend to do, in addition to engaging communities, is to also engage the private sector because they are beneficiaries. We will engage other arms of the political strata. They are going to be beneficiaries because if they have peaceful and organised communities, it will be easy for them to invest in those communities and in the lives of the people. We have a robust plan. So with or without money from government, we will start. But we need something to put us at a fairly reasonable level so that we do not look like beggars and waste more time trying to get the resources to start. But we should be fairly placed in a position that our programs can run. People will appreciate our objectives and plans and sign up.?
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RIGHT NOW IN NIGERIA IT IS STILL A CHALLENGE SUSTAINING AND APPRECIATING DEMOCRACY. WE ARE STILL TALKING ABOUT NIGERIA’S UNITY. DO YOU THINK AS AN AGENCY, THERE IS STILL A NEED FOR YOU TO WORK MORE ON WHY ALL NIGERIANS SHOULD BE LOOKING TOWARDS THE SAME GOAL?
Definitely, it is something that we should be doing. One of the plans I intend to undertake very soon is to engage the media and all those involved in the cultural industry. Movies and all of those must present the real Nigerian stories. If you take a Nigerian newspaper today, you see that the reports are mostly negative. Do a content analysis of the newspapers and you will see that the number of negative stories about the country are more than the positive stories, not just because negative stories sell but because that is the orientation. We should tell the Nigerian story, we should tell the story of insecurity and difficulties in a responsible manner. So we need to redefine the content of our reportage and of our movie industry. We have other stories, it is not all about coup plotting, and it is not all about corruption. What about the positive sides of our stories, what about the sacrifices of our heroes past? What about the story of Queen Amina? King Jaja of Opobo, all these stories need to be played up so that within them we will find a need for us to co-exist continuously as one Nigeria.
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AS AN AGENCY, HAS THERE EVER BEEN COLLABORATION WITH THE NIGERIAN MOVIE INDUSTRY?
That is why I said we will engage the movie industry, to redefine their content and also use them as tools of national orientation. Right now, we are talking with a few people. We are doing a project with Zak Amata and Peter Igho and so many others are coming with ideas and proposals. In fact, a few days ago, Prince Malik Ado Ibrahim came here and had a meeting with me. He is a top Nigerian Hollywood movie producer in America and we had a meeting. He is ready to deploy his capacity and his ability. In fact the amazing thing is that he is doing that for the love of the country. He has been out there for more than 20 years. He heard that I am here now and he wants to bring his experience to assist this country. So, we are talking and he is bringing us all sorts of goodwill. By the time we consolidate our direction, something good will come out of the National Orientation Agency, something good will come out of Nigeria and our story will not be the same again.
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YOU ARE MOVING TOWARDS ORIENTING NIGERIANS ON A CERTAIN IDEA AND EDUCATING THEM ON GOVERNMENT POLICIES. BUT RIGHT NOW THERE SEEMS TO BE A GAP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PEOPLE’S EXPECTATIONS. IS THERE A FEEDBACK MECHANISM FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO ALSO GET INFORMATION ON WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT?
One of the things the President told me to do is that I should get feedback from the people and report back to him. The agency also has some responsibility of social justice; it is not just about explaining government policies but also about taking people’s views on policies, programmes and projects back to the government in an objective and correct manner. You cannot assist a people who want water and you are giving them roads. You cannot assist a people who think differently about what subsidy should be used for, like the last episode we had in this country. Let me give you an example, if you have a car in the old regime, you drive in to a filling station and buy a full tank for N5,000; automatically the government pays N5,000 for you. What government said is that not all Nigerians have cars and it means the N5,000 it is paying in your own car as an individual is money also meant to go to other people who do not have cars including your mother, grandmother and everybody in the village. So what do we do? Let us transfer these resources to productive sectors that are closer to the people so that we can subsidise those areas, so that we can have access to money, they can buy their own cars and pay whatever they want to pay. Simply, that is what it means. We cannot continue to put money into non-productive sectors.
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THERE WERE REPORTS THAT YOU PREDECESSOR WAS REMOVED FROM OFFICE BECAUSE OF THE AGENCY’S INABILITY TO SENSITISE NIGERIANS AND MAKE THEM ACCEPT THE SUBSIDY REMOVAL. IS THERE ANY TRUTH TO IT?
I would not say that. I do not know the reason why government removed him. Perhaps they want to reassign him elsewhere. When I came in, they did not tell me the reason why he was removed. They only gave me an assignment to do and I thank them for that. When I went there, I saw that he had made his own efforts and I am going to build on whatever he has done and take it to another level.
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RIGHT NOW, IS IT PART OF YOUR AGENDA TO SENSITISE NIGERIANS ON THE NEED TO REMOVE THE SUBSIDY?
All government policies, it is not just subsidy but any other issue of government interest.
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WHAT ASSURANCE ARE YOU GIVING NIGERIANS THAT THINGS ARE GOING TO BE DIFFERENT NOW?
Well, the president has a transformation agenda and very soon, we begin to tell Nigerians what it is. Once they know it and key into, they will not disagree with the program. This transformation agenda is not just a propaganda slogan. We will do things. It is about attitudinal change and social change. This transformation is sectoral and institutional. It is everything put together. So by the time it is fully operational, you will see that our traders, our policemen, our army officers, road transport workers, every Nigerian is involved into giving something.
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WHAT IS THE AGENCY DOING TO ENLIGHTEN NIGERIANS ON THE NEED TO HOLD GOVERNMENT TO ACCOUNT?
We are undertaking continual civic education to tell people that this democracy is their democracy. This government is their mandate and the people they elected there are expressing their own power. We will continue to do that and one of the ways that we are sure they will support and agree with what we are doing is if they know and see that their views are reflected in the outcome of government programmes. Their views become the final deliverable actions of government. We will expressly begin to view government as our government. The more we consult and involve them in the process of decision making and policy formulation, the more we involve people in implementing the programmes and conception of the programmes at their respective levels, the more they take these programmes to heart and hold it as their own in the communities. Times have changed. Before government sites a programme in your community, it will engage you. You will agree then you will take hold of it. It is easier for everybody because then you protect it and have it as your own.
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POLITICIANS CONSISTENTLY USE THINGS LIKE RELIGION, ETHNICITY AND THOSE KIND OF THINGS TO DIVIDE THE COUNTRY TO THEIR ADVANTAGE. WHAT DO YOU THINK CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT?
It is unfortunate that when people fail to get what they are looking for in politics, they resort to the use of religion and small idiosyncrasies that tend to divide people and communities across our states. We have programmes to deliberately and aggressively engage traditional and religious institutions because most of these people go to church, most of these people go to the mosque. So, if they believe in God and they see these clerics preaching what they believe in, they should listen to them. We will have less violence and you can pursue things that will give you self esteem rather than tying your progress to the pockets of another person. Because, once there are equal opportunities, you can aspire to be the best in your own circumstance. We all do not have to be president, we cannot be. By the time we understand that and see every opportunity as one that can take us to the highest level of our expectations and social satisfaction, we will stick to it and make the best of our circumstances. So you should not tie your progress to the aspirations, especially political aspirations of the next person on your street.
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