VP Osinbajo At The Civic Innovation Lab Mentorship 1.0 On 04/04/2018

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Video Transcript

Excerpts…

On the question of existence of a brick wall with government concerning innovation. I think you are absolutely right about that. The reason is because we haven’t created enough platforms for people to interact with government. That is why the Civic Hub is one of those excellent examples where people who are in innovation, especially innovation that is socially relevant, have some kind of link with government.

One of the reasons why I took particular interest in the Civic Hub and maybe I was one of the very first to come visit here, is because of what they were talking about. For those of us in government, we want to see how problems in government can be resolved. It is more interesting and that interaction is important.

I think we need to create those platforms and I think those various innovations, organisations, private sector people, also have to break the obstacles. We just need to be more aggressive about it. An interaction like this is important, interactions like these are important. It is important that we create the opportunities for people in government to talk and hear what is being said, see what is being done and that gives the opportunities for a lot of interactions.

I will give you a few examples of what we have done; when we did the Aso Villa Demo Day, which was an innovation challenge that we threw to innovators all over the country, it was very well subscribed and all across the country, very many young people came together with their innovations and ideas. I think there were over 4,000 we worked out of Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kaduna. Finally, we were able to aggregate 100 people who had different innovative ideas and we finally brought down 30 people to meet with the President and Mike Zuckerberg was at that particular event. We have done another one since. We are also doing the Students’ Innovative Challenge, which is one we are collaborating with the Civic Hub. This is an innovative challenge for students across Nigeria, and those who are following already know it is online and people are applying.

Asides from that, we are going to do technology hubs in 6 Nigerian universities, we will start with UNILAG, they have already given us the space, it is going to be a creative hub, even beginning from the way the hub is going to be built. Again this is private sector led and all of the young people who we are working with are involved in this process. There is an innovative hub in Yola which is government supported but it is also private sector owned.

There was a megathon recently held in the innovative hub for those who have creative ideas about solving some of the humanitarian challenges in the Northeast. That has proven to be an incredibly well subscribed innovation. So we are creating many platforms and opportunities like that but definitely, there is a need to do much more.

I think that innovators also have to be more aggressive and do a lot more because government is government, it belongs to all of us, so we have got to see ways of opening the opportunities in government.

Regarding values and how my values are challenged all the time, and how I cope with it, it is a very good question because your values will always be challenged. Even today, my values are being challenged in government as you can imagine. Let me give you an example, I started out teaching and law practice, and in practice, you find that there are people who would ask you , for instance you get a job with a bank, the company secretary wants you to speak your fees, the company secretary says give me 60% and you take 40%. So people ask for kickbacks and all of that. Nepa is another example, they tell you that they can fix your meters in such a way that you don’t pay!

None of us can say we are not under pressure to bulk to these things. But I have found from experience, that it is better to stick to your values. In the two examples I gave, I was involved in both cases and lost out big time. I found out that my conscience could not take it, I just thoroughly hated the idea of having to split my fees with anyone. You didn’t do the work, so who are you to say you want some of the money?

So for me, I would not allow you to cheat me, but there you were, needing the job, but in both cases, I got my fingers thoroughly burnt. I also think my faith helped, I became a born again Christian, and I made up my mind to play it by the book.

You are in a very powerful position when you decide not to compromise on your values. I found out that with my law firm, once we decided we were not going to do any funny deals, we lost all the corporate clients that we had, practically all. For almost 3 years, we weren’t able to get those kinds of jobs because we were not going to pay, just to show you how pervasive this corruption is, and this is private sector and nothing to do with government.

But after that, we then began to get other types of jobs like intellectual property jobs, arbitration jobs, and other jobs that gave us far more money and resources. You know the good thing, these same guys who won’t give us the jobs will say, if you want a firm that you can trust, go here! They won’t take anything from you.

Over the years, it was a painful thing because you must take the pain. Look at government, it is the same, everybody comes to you and expects you to do a deal. This is the way the country is, so we have to ask ourselves whether you want to do it or not. Let’s leave Vice President, if you become anything at all, people expect things from you.

People who celebrate you from church, your community and anywhere, expect you to be transformed immediately when you become something. So someone shows up after I have been appointed Vice President, and says, “all I want from you Sir is N1million to start a business”. I respond by saying, “my salary is N1.75million a month”. Those are not my expenses because government pays for everything, but that is my salary. I used to earn more than that in legal practice. And this fellow says to me, “oga please now.” Almost as if to say that is rubbish. And that is the way people say it, that you must be putting your hands somewhere, you must be stealing something somewhere and if you are not stealing, you are seen as some kind of weirdo.

The truth is no community can survive on the greed and theft of everyone, it is not possible, it should be the exception, it can’t be the rule. We have to set ourselves apart. So I think individuals have to say that they won’t do these things. It is also a short-term thing in my view, once you establish a reputation for not taking or giving bribes, people will know. It may be hard at first but after a while, that reputation is good for you.

If you look at a lot of the companies that work in Nigeria, especially the foreign companies that work in Nigeria, those companies that have to report in their countries, many of them have made up their minds that they aren’t going to do any of these things. We also know that they are not going to do any of these things. So we meet with some of the more shady and dodgy characters from different parts of the world where they don’t report self and all that.

We must form a community of like-minded people, and I have always established that wherever I am – people who think like me. I engage and bring on board only people who think like me. I don’t hire people who I think might be dodgy. So we have a community of people whose ideas and ideals reinforce each other.