Inaugural Cohort Of The AIG – BSG Public Lecture Leaders’ Programme Sponsored By Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation On 03/03/2022

• Share:

Video Transcript

REMARKS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AT THE INAUGURAL COHORT OF THE AFRICA INITIATIVE FOR GOVERNANCE AND OXFORD UNIVERSITY’S BLAVATNIK SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT (AIG-BSG) PUBLIC LECTURE LEADERS’ PROGRAMME  SPONSORED BY THE AIG-IMOUKHUEDE FOUNDATION ON THE 3RD OF MARCH, 2022

PROTOCOLS

It is such a pleasure to be here with you, the pioneering, razor-sharp cohorts of the Public Leaders’ Programme. I must say that just listening to where you are all from and the various talents and skills that are here, even without the training, is evident that our country is going places. This programme is one that will ensure this happens just as we have heard from Mr Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede

It is difficult to overstate the importance of having well-trained, knowledgeable, and well-motivated public servants. Our governments have never been short of ideas, policies or roadmaps; indeed, we have some of the best written and most insightful policies on practically all issues, but we fall flat on implementation.

The reason is the quality of the human resources that we deploy in the public sector, unlike in the private sector where usually the profit motive makes it imperative to provide relevant and cutting-edge training to ensure that staff are well equipped to deliver on targets and KPIs.

The public service on the other hand, usually take the traditional approach, the result being a bureaucracy unable to develop, but more importantly, to deliver on government initiatives and programmes. When I came into the Office of the Vice President in 2015, people wrote all sorts of proposals but one thing I discovered very quickly was that on practically anything, there was one sort of proposal or policy already.

Once public goods cannot be delivered effectively, development suffers, the commons are all at risk and the overall quality of life of the people is undermined. This is why the AIG-BSG programme is so crucial to the public service we need.

We need a bureaucracy that fully appreciates how to think, act and plan in a world so completely transformed in the last two decades that almost every old assumption about commerce, lifestyle, gender issues, political ideology are now being upturned or at least, being seriously challenged. Practically everything that we used to take for granted is now being challenged.

How about technology and what it means today? The old notions of official secrecy, (I wrote a book in the 90s on Nigeria Media Law and devoted a whole chapter to official secrecy. I looked at the book 2 years ago and couldn’t believe the nonsense that is now new knowledge. We are doing a revision but if anyone read it today, you’d wonder what part of the world these people were living in because everything has changed), the sanctity of government information and communication are now cracking all around.

These days, it has become easier to put out even hard copy public information for mischief, every device has a camera. Electronically stored information can be also be hacked. What are the new protocols that we must now adopt? What are the safeguards we must put into regulations? What are the rules for using private phones or emails for public purposes?

How about the emergence of tech companies and tech-enabled companies? What sort of regulatory environment will grow and not stifle innovation and creativity? What are the new rules we need to write?

Some may remember the arguments back and forth about the regulation of cryptocurrency. The Security Exchange Commission, SEC, had drawn up rules about registering cryptocurrency companies, the Central Bank of Nigeria had a different view. That is all extremely healthy because cryptocurrencies were completely new. No one knew where cryptocurrencies were headed but that is the sort of thing we are going to face now almost on a daily basis. The world is changing and things are moving fast. There is nothing we used to assume before that is going to be the same. The sorts of individuals in the public service who write the rules and regulations, people like yourselves must be people who understand what is new.

It means you must read and be ready for the changes. You can’t seat down and say “this is how we used to do it” or “this is what is in the rule book.” We have to change that.

Writing the rules for new phenomena, stuff that the whole world is trying to grapple with and doing so quickly and with the understanding that these are the types of challenges that today’s public officer faces.

How about governance issues? Recognizing that ensuring integrity in the workplace is not merely a moral issue, it is an existential issue for the country itself. If there are problems today that our governments face (both federal and state), it is governance, integrity, petty corruption, grand corruption. Those are the major problems today and everyone knows that. Whatever you are trying to do within the public service, there are obstacles of various kinds.

How do we deal with these issues? How do we let our organisations know that this is existential and not just a moral issue? The mere fact that one or two people can make money within an organisation and possibly get away with it for a while doesn’t mean that is the end of the matter.

We are incrementally destroying not just our institution, but our nation. One of the reasons why prosperity is difficult is because of the problems that we have within the public service.

I recall that there was a particular person who donated a cancer treatment facility to an agency, I don’t want to mention names. When we got here in 2015, the person who was from an embassy, thanked the President for being able to install the cancer treatment facility after almost 6 years. Why? Because the public servants within that agency were asking for a bribe.

For me, one of the central questions we have to ask is and I will propose to you is, ‘how do we deal with this issue? They are fundamental and nothing gets done unless we are able to deal with these issues.

Why do systems anywhere else in the world uphold basic notions of honesty, transparency and integrity? It is because it makes economic sense. Dishonesty undermines the entire enterprise. The reason why the Singaporean government under Lee Kuan Yew decided they were going to be ruthless on issues of corruption is that they realised that their little nation would be completely destroyed if they allowed dishonesty within their system. That’s why they moved up very quickly to become a first-world nation. We (Nigeria) need to deal with that issue also.

We must also understand and disseminate our rules on governance in such a way as to make it clear that whatever types of breaches on these rules of governance will kill progress and as the President said, “if we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us.”

I was fascinated by the contents of your classes on strengthening public organizations, especially the question of who sets goals and values and what counts as high performance. This is a crucial issue. Because the public service, especially regulatory agencies generally tend to see their roles as policing or revenue generation. Yes, they may have that role, but their real role must be how to make life easier for the private sector, small and large businesses, individuals who create the jobs, create the wealth and lift millions out of poverty.

The business of the regulator cannot just be a “policeman” or revenue generation, it must be to facilitate all of the private sector enterprises, businesses and individuals because that is where the wealth of the nation lies.

People in the public sector and all of us complain that there are no jobs, but we are responsible too. If it takes a year for NAFDAC, I am not necessarily criticizing NAFDAC, but for example, if it takes a year to register my beauty product as an entrepreneur and get the NAFDAC number, what happens to the business? If I don’t have a NAFDAC number, I can’t put my products in the supermarket, I would be selling under the table. Meanwhile, somebody rushes off to Ghana, gets the equivalent of the NAFDAC number, and that person can sell in a supermarket in Nigeria.

The person who seats at the desk in NAFDAC, who thinks he/she is policing must ask the question, how am I damaging the economy of this country and preventing people who want to create jobs?  What does high performance mean in a regulatory agency? Is it how many people you stop or delay? Or is it how many people you are able to ensure get along and do their business. In the various agencies, we must be facilitators.

One of the things we talk about extensively at the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council, PEBEC, is what do we do with our regulatory agencies? We have the MSMEs Clinics, where we go all over the States of the Federation with the regulatory agencies. The whole idea is for the MSMEs to meet with regulators so that they can tell the agencies their complaints. Everyone has one complaint or the other.

The whole point is that we want the regulators to understand that they are business facilitators. If you are not facilitating business or making it easier for people to do business, then we have a problem. That is one of the reasons why people complain about our business environment in Nigeria. I met with a group of ladies who do business in Abuja, almost 200 of them and everybody had a complaint, about somebody or the other coming (for payments) either for the environment or payment for something else.  That kind of environment kills enterprise and our people are very enterprising. They want to do business and we ought to be able to support that.

High Performance must then be determined by fidelity to those ultimate values that we pursue. What we want is an economy that is robust and prosperous and the only way by which we should be able to judge the performance of regulatory agencies is how are you faithful to those values? Are you developing the sort of society and economy we want?

So finally, if I may offer just one piece of advice – read, read and read.

I want to thank my dear friend, Aig and his dear wife, Ofovwe, for all the work they have done. Most people who do this sort of work they are doing, in other words, a service to society, social enterprise, are always able to distance themselves from it. I want to commend them that they are not just interested in the idea to set up an organisation, they are working day and night, looking at these issues trying to do the very best they can, especially for the public service of Nigeria.

I must say that all of this work is service to God, so long as we are serving man, improving the quality of lives, people, government, it means we are serving God in a very unique and exceptional way.

I would like to thank the School of Government, Oxford University for putting this together and to say to the ladies and gentlemen who are here that I wish you all the very best in the coming years. I am waiting to see all of the great impact that you will make. I don’t think we need to have all of the public service, (only a few will) make a difference so long as the few are committed to making a difference.

I also want to commend the Aig Imoukhuede Foundation for ensuring that we have enough female representation. I have been looking for a good way of saying something soothing to the women and my wife in particular for the loss of the constitutional amendment of the provision of Special Seats for Women in the National and State Houses of Assembly; and for Related Matters. It was a terrible thing indeed. So, I have been looking for some silver lining somewhere and I think this is that silver lining.

Thank you all very much.