In a bid to check the prevalence of political corruption and abuse of public office, former president Olusegun Obasanjo says that the African Initiative for Governance (AIG) will help create a pipeline of men and women of integrity ready to take up the task of nation building.
In a press briefing after a meeting of the Board of AIG, the former president, who is an adviser to the initiative, said one of the problems in Africa today is a crisis of leadership which the initiative is created to address.
“This initiative is to help to create a critical mass of people with character, integrity, and who are patriotic, who will not think only about themselves but the country, who will help to build the country,” Obasanjo said.
He further said, “Not only in the civil service but in all areas of governance, we need enhanced quality from men and women; quality of service, quality of character, quality of attitude and quality of performance.”
The African Initiative for Governance is committing about N123million in tuition for Masters in Public Policy at the renowned Blavatnik School of Government, the UK’s first school of Government, at the University of Oxford, for the training of five Nigerians every year, for the next five years.
According to Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, chairman and founder of AIG, the project aims to counter the perception that public service is vehicle for private gain by assisting to raise individuals with a burning passion for public service in public positions.
“This initiative is for brilliant people who have a desire to impact public service. In the private sector we often have excellent performance and Nigerians have excelled in different fields of endeavour, be it entertainment, banking, technology, why can’t we replicate this success in public service? Until we get our best people in public service, we won’t solve Nigeria’s problems, said Aig-Imoukhuede.
According to Ngaire Woods,a professor and dean of the Blavatnik School of Government, the school which was launched in 2010 took 800 years to build and every year, it selects those they believe are the most impactful people from different countries across the world to do a one year very intensive, masters programme at the university.
Woods said the curriculum focuses on three key areas the public service desperately needs: clear sense of purpose and values alongside a course in economics, how to synthesise policies since great decisions are the product of the ability to synthesise different government functionaries proposals, academic analytical skills, professional skills including budgeting management, strategy, communication and negotiation.
On selection criteria she said, “Criteria for admission are three: first intellectual ability or capacity, second commitment to public service and third evidence of impact, that this is somebody that has the energy and tenacity to actually deliver and to have impact.”
Woods said that the school is set up to improve government in three ways – first is through education, the second is through research which actually tries to answer questions that governments need answers and the third is to engage willing leaders from around the world.
“The school is not suggesting that there is one solution to problems all over the world, the philosophy of the school is not that we should engineer single solutions but that from this continent as from other continents, governments will do better if they learn to learn from one another.
“We are committed to the idea that if we improve government by a little bit we improve the lives of millions of people,” she said.
ISAAC ANYAOGU
