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Reform As Learning Curve And Change  Management: A Policy Think-piece

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Prof. Tunji Olaopa

By  Tunji Olaopa

This piece is a contribution to an emerging policy conversation around the management of development policy dynamics with commendable traction. This is a field that is now taking center point given the fact of the sundry expectations that Nigerians have about the Tinubu administration. It is a field larger than my core expertise around policy implementation and institutional reform through the capacitation of public institutions for capability readiness. And yet, this larger policy conversation is so multidisciplinary that it requires all hands to be on deck. Such a conversation is too significant to leave to public commentators, government functionaries and officials alone. It becomes an imperative for institutional memory and core public sector expertise to weigh in too. This is where this piece is coming from. 

A series of expert policy discussions  was ongoing as patriotic concern, as should be normal, before the inauguration of this administration, on the urgency of moving from election victory to agenda setting and policy design cum articulation and national change management. Indeed, the conversation organized by the Nextier group in April in Abuja on the theme of “From Election to Governance and Performance” was meant to aggregate opinions and arguments on what the Tinubu administration can and needs to do to be considered a successful administration compared to preceding ones. And in close to three months of the administration’s inauguration, President Tinubu has exceeded all expectations in terms of the rollout of diverse policy initiatives, from subsidy removal, taxation, student loan scheme and strategic communication as stakeholder engagement. Even the burst of commentaries and criticism in the public sphere attests to this. 

And yet, the overall demands for good governance transcend this initial burst. Yes, the new administration has hit the ground running. But Nigerians are already reacting to the consequences of the policies the government has rolled out. The shockwave rolling across the country signals that Nigerians are still not able to fathom what directions that policy architecture will take them. How then does one connect between the good intentions for the governance of Nigeria that the Tinubu administration has brought to its election into office, and the reality of the seeming policy disarticulation that is already causing untold hardship with just a few weeks in office? The idea is simply that policy design and articulation are not enough to articulate good governance that is facilitated by institutional and governance reform. The critical trajectory demands transiting from policy strategies to change management that brings the policy initiatives alive for qualitative changes to the lives of Nigerians.      

Thus, one way to come to a quick understanding of the discrepancy in the new administration is that governments often rely on technicist solution to the existential challenges of their citizens, when all this can achieve is to muddle up the relationship between policies, the policy implementation and the objective of making the citizens better. Reliance on technicist solutions weighs the dice in favor of technical appraisals and frameworks for institutional renewal and policy thrust as an end in itself, against the end of making the institution work for the betterment of the citizens.    

The meaning of good governance everywhere across the world is first about the well-intentioned policies of government meant to better the lives of the citizens. However, for good governance to even take off, the government must be well-prepared to embark on rigorous and comprehensive sets of institutional and administrative reforms around which policies can then have the dynamics of succeeding in improving the quality of life of the citizens. This automatically implies that no government can overlook or underestimate the importance of theoretical and conceptual issues in governance and the policy process. 

This immediately tells us that the ideas of development and reform are crucial concepts that ought to underlie the very policy efforts of government to transform the lives of their citizens. To ask the fundamental question of what development means is to interrogate the policy direction a state intends to take, and what ideological orientation would determine that development direction. Does a state want to toe the capability, income, welfare or basic needs approach to development? Dudley Seer, for instance, insists that development is measured by the extent to which a state ensures a steady decline in the levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality. When these are measured to have declined over time, then we can say the state is gradually developing. And whatever development path a state chooses hinges on the reform program of the government and how it is pursued. 

Reform, in simple terms, implies the readjustment or repositioning of an organisation (in this case, the policy space) in order to be able to effectively and efficiently meet the dynamism and challenges of its universe of operation. It often requires a trajectory of moving from a present but unfavourable state through a series of strategic and institutional stages of change towards a future state marked by efficient and effective improvements leading to better performance. It suggests that the country is going through a present phase of decay and dysfunction, and requires deliberate efforts aimed at changing its state systems, structures and processes in order to make them perform the designated function better and effectively. Thus, reforming the state system and the policy space involves the idea of improvement in the ways and manners in which government is managed and public goods and services are delivered effectively, efficiently, economically and with value for money.

While we can concede that Nigeria is a reforming state, it has now become unfortunate that reforms, going by historical data, hardly achieve the core of the policy, governance and development objectives they are meant for. Reforms are essentially historical and ideological; they answer to contextual demands and principles. In fact, they allow a state to frame the values that will best facilitate governance objectives. But rather than allowing reform to enable the framing of a democratic governance vision, Nigeria seems to have been “benchmarking failure,” to quote a graphic phrase by Prof. Francis Egbokhare. The lack of a solid and sustainable reform dynamic has made it so that a failed past government suddenly becomes better in the light of the failure of the present government and its inability to achieve what the past government also failed to achieve! 

One explanation is that institutional reform in Africa has often been designed in terms of redefining the role of the state. This is a highly ideological framework which speaks to the declining relevance of state-managed economies, especially in the third world, vis-à-vis the growing rate of progress recorded in the market economies of the Western societies. And this ideological constraint has been the source of the discourse on development paradigms that put Nigeria, like other African states, on two opposing sides of adherence to the neoliberal Washington Consensus, on the one hand; and the developmental state theory that sees the utility in neoliberalism even if it is modified and monitored as exemplified by Asian Tigers. Government must therefore make ideological assumptions that, in the case of Nigeria and the Tinubu administration, will jumpstart a democratic governance that is founded on a people-oriented development. 

The key therefore lies in the change management programme that the government can commit to and assiduously push through a messy trajectory that has the potential of yielding distinct successes. And such change management dynamics, hitched to development policy framework, are founded on several axiomatic principles and methodologies that the new government, as well as Nigerians, will do well to put in mind if it must make the urgent transition from policy articulation to implementation. First, and in layman’s term, it will most likely get worse before it starts to get better. In other words, there is no change management that comes easy. Thus, to be able to make the omelet of inclusive development outcomes, wealth creation, poverty reduction, infrastructural development, service delivery of public goods and global competitiveness, the government and the people must know that eggs must be cracked; no gain without pains. This realization derives, first, from the understanding that reform is essentially messy, non-linear and often deeply complex. It possesses a multidimensional nature because the casual relationship of sub-systems is usually complex. Since there are no single or predictable sets of cause for system’s dysfunction, there is hardly a simple formula (one-model-fits-all) or strategy for their resolution or for easy control to alter the behaviors of the national economy, its development institutional parameters and management systems. 

This understanding leads in several methodological directions. One, this nature of reform must create in the government the willingness to make tough decisions that is however undergirded by credibility, sincerity and exemplary leadership which invests in the famous national resilience that Nigerians are known for, supported by innovative frameworks of palliative support programmes to cushion the storms. Two, the government also needs a strategic communication framework—rather than silence—to convey to Nigerians the trajectory of moving from our present state to a better one. This enables a gradual change of national mental models from rampant cynicism to vibrant optimism once the people believe the government and its willingness to work on their behalf. And the message to pass across, with sincerity and credibility, is that fundamental policies with far-reaching development impact often take very long to gestate and mature. This is what accounts for why governments balance between short (the constraining 4-year tenure) and long-term development objectives.

Once the fundamental axioms are taken care of, the Tinubu administration then needs a further followup on the nature of reform that must underlie its change management. The first lesson the Tinubu administration must learn from the messy and complex nature of reform is to get the basic right. This translates into thinking through the sequencing and phasing of reforms. This demand an acute methodological creativity that balances between reform as continuous institutional learning and improvement and reform as a comprehensive big bang transformation. And in this regard, part of the juggling between short-term and long-term objectives might be the determination of what is of immediate value to Nigerians, i.e. “stomach infrastructures”, and what takes a while to accrue as development legacies and benefits that are capable of creating the quantum of transitions that ultimately ignite desired national transformation. 

Finally, past governance experience has taught us that there is no way to reach the goal of national productivity without first nipping the cost of governance tragedy in the bud. This therefore demands a national waste management framework that can contain the unbridled chains of redundancies and unnecessary institutional multiplications that burden our fiscal accountability. And this is a reform move that cannot be achieved without bringing the labour unions into a developmental journey whose aim is to undermine the existing adversarial industrial relations and substitute it with a developmental one.   

By going back to the basics in terms of governance and reforms, the Tinubu government will not only be ensuring it will not be repeating the mistakes and errors of the past, it will also be laying a solid foundation for a better Nigeria—after sixty-three years of trying. 

. Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary, and Professor of Public Administration .

tolaopa2003@gmail.com

 

      

   

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Opinion

Fear Of Witchcraft And Politics In Zambia

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Witch Burning, Impunity And Abuses Linked to Witchcraft Beliefs In Benue State
Dr Leo Igwe

By Leo Igwe

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) is concerned over the reported arrest of two men accused of being ‘witchdoctors’ in Zambia. The arrest underscores the potency of witchcraft fears and the connection between occult anxieties and the country’s politics. These individuals were accused of trying to bewitch the Zambian president, Hakainde Hichilema. The police claimed that they had charms. They planned to use the charms to harm the president. The report says the two persons have been charged under Zambia’s Witchcraft Act. The Act criminalizes “possession of charms”, “professing knowledge of witchcraft”, and “cruelty to wild animals”. The police found the two with assorted charms, including a live chameleon.

This development is utterly embarrassing and shows that the Zambian government is slowly losing its focus and bearing.The country has many socio-economic challenges. Suspicion of bewitchment or possession of charms should be the least of its worries at this time. There should be no place for witchcraft and possession of charms in modern politics because there is no evidence for these beliefs and practices. Zambian authorities should not weaponize the Witchcraft Act or use it to justify this incident. Zambian law does not recognize witchcraft. Zambia’s Witchcraft Act criminalizes naming or imputing witchcraft. It prohibits accusing or threatening to accuse any person of being a witch or a wizard. In this case, it is the police who are breaking the law.

Otherwise, how did they know the two individuals were ‘witchdoctors’? Did these persons identify as witch doctors? If not, the police are liable because they named and imputed witchcraft and have to prove that these individuals have witch-doctoring powers. The police claimed to have charged these individuals for possessing “assorted charms”, including a chameleon. Really?

The police in Zambia have questions to answer: What are charms? How did they know that what was in their possession were charms, not pets? Is a chameleon a form of charm? What makes possession of a chameleon possession of a charm? When and how does a chameleon become a charm? The police need to answer these questions and more before one takes them seriously.

Again, did the individuals describe what was in possession as ‘charms’? If they did, does confessing or designating something as a charm make it a charm? And if they did not, the police are liable because they need to prove how those possessions translated into charms.

In addition, the police claimed that the duo wanted to bewitch the president. What does that mean? How did they know? Are the police not contravening a provision under the Witchcraft Act by professing knowledge of witchcraft? Can one harm another person using a chameleon? They claimed that the two persons wanted to use the charms in their possession, including the chameleon to harm the president. How did they know that? What is the evidence for that?

The Advocacy for Alleged Witches calls for an end to this state-sponsored witch hunt. There is no evidence of harm through witchcraft or charms. The Zambian government should desist from witchcraft- related infractions and violations including arbitrary arrest, and detention of innocent citizens. These allegations are baseless and absurd. The arrest was politically motivated. This development demonstrates that Zambian authorities are out of sync with their duty and obligation to uphold the rule of law and protect accused persons.

Zambian authorities need to act in compliance with the 2021 UN resolution, which urged states to take measures to combat abuses linked to witchcraft beliefs and ritual attacks. End witchcraft allegations in Zambia. End witch hunts in Africa now!

Dr Igwe directs the Advocacy for Alleged Witches.

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Opinion

Burning Issues: (FCT Minister And Paulosa) (2)

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Readers’ Showers Of Encouragement
Prof. Tony Afejuku

By Tony Afejuku

The other burning issue, apart from Farotimi and Babalola’s, which I wish to take a look at – and which I am taking a look at now – relates to what is happening in our capital territory. What is this burning issue – which our human rightists and civil society organisations and personages are surprisingly and un-satisfactorily not inclined to focus attention on and examine as they should? I may be wrong, but it surely seems to me that this issue, this burning issue, which is of more importance than Farotimi and Babalola’s – which has been given undue adulation – is deliberately being neglected and depreciated by proclaimers and heroes and heroines of human rights, justice, equity and equality of rights in your country my country our country. Why, why, why and why, why, why? Anyone who has any iota of patriotic sensibility, feeling and judgment well watered and buttressed by a very great influence upon his or her critical judgment will keep on asking the question I am asking.

Mr. Nyesom Wike, as almost everybody who can read and write a little knows, is the current minister of your, my and our Federal Capital Territory. His post or office is akin to that of a governor of a state. As the immediate past governor of Rivers State who was drafted, after his two terms there expired, to continue in the FCT as its new minister-governor or governor-minister under the auspices of a party he is not a true member of, Mr. Wike cannot but be seen as a lucky man. He is in every possible and impossible way. Minister-Governor Wike is a lucky man and a very fortunate one indeed. No former governor of Rivers State (or of any Nigerian state), as far as I know, has achieved what the famed political rouser of rabbles has achieved in one short gubernatorial life-time, and at a relatively young and fertile age. His dual achievement with and in two different political parties at this delicate point of Nigerian politics indicates to our politicians and us all that there is always time for a reminder that there are ready-made high rewards for arch-angels of betrayals. And Mr. Wike may go down in Rivers and Nigerian history as both an arch-angel and an emperor of betrayal of us all if we attempt to indicate what I have defined here as his dual achievement.

We can roughly divide, briefly, Wike’s political development into two periods. During the first, excluding his lower political positions before he became the governor of Rivers State, he quickly adapted his style to that of an emperor who became a rabble-rouser of rabble-rousers whose gubernatorial efficiency moved from stiffness to stiffness. He did not at any time feel that he needed suppleness to govern Rivers State. “Let the heavens fall if they must fall!” We are not there yet in this attempted analysis of the stiff-hearted and stiff-minded one. True? But he is already demonstrating this characteristic in Abuja. False? Judge and give the answer yourself.

Even after he left Rivers State a short while ago as governor, he is still trying to control happenings there to the political discomfiture of his hand-picked successor, his erstwhile “boy” and “son” – with whom he has fallen out. As the minister-governor or governor-minister of the FCT, Wike is occupied with the other taste of the emperor-juggernaut formulator – doing the work of two key political masters in one room and desk of political jugglery. Since his appearance in the FCT, minister-governor or governor-minister Wike has allegedly attempted to recover or transform for Abuja what is not traditionally or socially Abuja’s, for example, the city’s social idiom and landscape and terrain as well as its environs. In doing this he sometimes over-steps his bounds and mark of human/inhuman decency/indecency and psychological understanding of human nature, if you follow well what I am saying; he has so far become at best not really better than a typical pedestrian Nigerian lawyer and officer of political power: in his explorations so far in the Federal Capital Territory we have come to the realization, as T. S. Eliot would say, that “it is so often true that only by going too far can we find out how far we can go.” But one has to be a very negatively obstinate and self-serving emperor and a thorough-bred arch-angel of betrayal of the people and masses to justify such perilous and perfidious expeditions and adventures.

Last week, I saw on Arise Television “The Morning Show” Chief Rita Lori-Ogbebor, the dutiful widow of the late Nigerian supreme patriot and soldier, Colonel Ogbebor (of Benin stock) battling, so to say, to wrest the legacy of her late husband from the tight grip of the adventurous FCT minister-governor who has registered his name and signature in the hearts and consciousness of the people as the depriver of their possessions. The three anchors of “The Morning Show” were in their respective ways splendid in their structures of remarks and questions to Chief (Mrs.) Rita Lori-Ogbebor whom I have had occasions in times past to call patriotically Rita A-K 47 on account of her natural right to fire her beautiful tongue at any person, usually an enemy, of just actions. When she made the case she made to protect the estate of Paulosa Nigeria Limited, her late husband’s aforesaid legacy in the FCT, she was in her natural territory, habitat and element where even at age eighty-four, she never ever loses her stability – although she unusually restrained herself in the Arise Television appearance. Dr. Reuben Abati, Rufai Oseni, and Ayo Mairo-Ese clearly explored seriously but delightfully the mind of the mother-hen of Warri – my other coinage and appellation I gave her in my poetry. Her “The Morning Show” appearance enabled me to see the poignant cry de profundis of the FCT inhabitants whose property and residences in different guises have been demolished. She did not say anything that was out of joint. She spoke and came out as a mother, protector and symbol of the people who have suffered – and are suffering – from the state of affliction and anguish Wike’s demolitions have placed – and are placing – the people.

Ojy Okpe in her delicious and delectable “What is Trending” slot on the same show, showed without exaggeration but with further elaboration what people in and outside Abuja/FCT think of the mighty Wike’s demolitions, a burning issue that the Senate has asked “Let Heaven Fall” minister-governor Wike to halt as the committee the Senate set up on the issue starts its work. Of course, we cannot but assume that Chief Rita Lori-Ogbebor, Mrs. Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan as well as Mrs. Ireti Kingigbe, the senator representing the FCT in the Senate and other patriotic senators diligently did what they did on the floor of the Senate when the burning issue was tabled for debate with the gracious understanding and authorization of the Senate President.

I need to state further that the “The Morning Show” anchors did well and extremely so by giving the minister-governor the opportunity to air his anti-Paulosa story. His senior special assistant on public communication and social media, Mr. Olalere Olayinka, stood in for him. After he gave the reasons for the clamp-down, his responses to the questions the anchors put to him followed the usual pattern of denials by artificial men in power – denials that they always use to intimidate and betray the people. In fact, Mr. Olayinka’s ploy to ride easily over our dear Rufai Oseni, a wholesome representative of the deprived, that the chap (or is it guy?) and his boss always employ their colloquial speeches and remarks to dishonor, failed. Yes, the ploy failed woefully. In stanza after stanza of the exchanges between Mr. Olayinka and the Arise anchors, he deteriorated – and his deterioration was hall-marked when he unwittingly revealed that the Paulosa land had been acquired by his minister-governor’s close cohort, an act that was nothing short of gross abuse of power and authority.

Because the Senate is already using its authority, power and privilege to resolve the burning issue, hopefully, in a way that the late Colonel Ogbebor’s legacy and family will not be subjected to any kind of degradation, I will utter no more words for now. I trust, however, that the liberties the Senate is taking – or has taken – are for the sake of order to favour the down-trodden.

As for the minister-governor, the PDP emperor at large, here is an immortal quote from Marcus Aurelius, the magnificent and authentic Roman Emperor and philosopher (A.D. 121-180): “If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.” You lose nothing by giving us a slice of your humanity by your right acts and correct words. Everything changes and passes. Be humane as a human being.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.

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Opinion

Questionstorm As A Method Of Teaching

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Witch Burning, Impunity And Abuses Linked to Witchcraft Beliefs In Benue State

By Leo Igwe

Recently, I facilitated a critical thinking workshop at the Bay Wreath Schools in Lagos. The theme was critical thinking and teacher development. As the theme stated, the workshop was on teaching, about teaching, and for teachers. It highlighted the pedagogical value of critical and reflective inquiry. The workshop exposed teachers to critical mental habits and skills. It emphasized how critical thinking would enhance expertise in the learning and delivery of subjects in classrooms.

I used the opportunity to discuss questionstorm as a method of teaching and learning. Questionstorm is a way that I operationalized critical thinking for primary and elementary schools. Questionstorm is the ability to interrogate all objects and materials. It is a habit of questioning ideas and experiences in all areas of human endeavor. Simply put, questionstorm is a question-driven inquiry. Children are naturally curious. They thirst for knowledge and understanding. Unfortunately, the school system kills children’s curiosity and dampens their interrogative appetite. The school system places much emphasis on rote learning and memorization. It makes the generation of answers not questions or problems the test of knowledge, and the determinant of intelligence. Teaching is largely a drudgery, a monotonous exercise, and a process of depositing knowledge on passive recipients, the students. Teaching entails dumping information on learners whose duty is to cram and reproduce during tests or examinations.

This teaching praxis has been criticized and blamed for the poor performance of students post-school (college and university) and their inability to think independently, creatively, and innovatively. Other teaching methods have tried to address these gaps and limitations. There have been suggestions to make teaching and instruction more active, and more student/learner/child-centered. One such method is the Montessori method. The Montessori method discourages grades and tests as ways of measuring achievement or determining intelligence and excellence. It emphasizes hands-on learning and the development of real-world skills. While the Montessori method stresses the practical approach to learning it says very little about the authoritarian teacher-to-student approach that is the mainstay of teaching and learning in classrooms. Teaching follows a pattern that leaves students and learners in the margins and unable to question and contribute to the learning process. Teachers present what is to be learned such as a text, and then generate questions that students respond or address to demonstrate knowledge of what has been taught. The student’s or learner’s main job is to answer questions, to look for or find answers or solutions. The teacher’s work is to get students to look for, and provide answers, and reproduce what they have been taught or told. But students are answer-depots. Students are not memory banks or reserves. They are active minds and thinking agents.

With questionstorm as a teaching method, the mode of instruction would change. Teaching becomes a cooperative endeavor that actively involves teachers and students. What is taught in the classroom is a collaborative note, not the teacher’s note, not a handout to students. Teachers present or generate texts or objects for learning, in response to intense questioning of the object or material by students, teachers provide information as required for that subject, topic, level, and time frame. No two instances of teaching – of the same topic or subject- are or should be the same because the input of students and teachers is not predetermined.
This is because of an overlooked principle in teaching and learning, that I call the “uncertainty principle”.

The uncertainty principle underlies questionstorm because knowledge is not fixed. Learning is a fluid process. All that is to be learned is uncertain, it is unknown and never determined. No teacher can say beforehand what is to be taught or learned because no one knows exactly the questions and answers or replies that would arise when a topic is presented or taught in a particular class. A topic or learning material elicits unique responses and exchanges that both teachers and students cannot exactly know or predict a priori, before the fact.

Teaching is a shared task and responsibility. Class notes are fluid materials. They are not texts cast on educational stones and delivered by teachers to students to copy, cut, and paste as is often the case. Class notes are not written or produced by teachers for students but by teachers with students. Teachers’ notes are incomplete and insufficient. They account only for a part, not a whole of the learning process and material. Students’ input completes and complements the teaching material and learning process. Thus every class note is unique because it is a product of a specific collaborative endeavor, a product of particular teaching and learning agents and circumstances that cannot be repeated or replicated.

Thus, as a teaching method, questionstorm is set to facilitate teacher development and improve the quality of instruction in schools. Questionstorm will help realize a paradigm shift in education and learning. I hope educators, teachers, and school managers will embrace this method of teaching and learning.

Dr  Igwe directs the Critical Thinking Social Empowerment Foundation.

 

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