Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State recently became a public spittoon after he announced a Commissioner for Happiness and Couples’ Fulfilment for his state. Not even a later statement by Sam Onwuemeodo, his chief media attack dog, clarifying that it was not ‘Couples Fulfilment’ but ‘Purpose Fulfilment’, could help matters.
Onwuemeodo’s statement justified the creation of the new ministry. It said the real essence of life is to be happy and to fulfil one’s purpose, and government leaders are elected for this sole purpose – to guarantee the citizens’ happiness and purpose fulfilment. It said “a great leader…is one who provides happiness to the people” and regretted that “this vital element of our social lives has not been properly addressed”, for which reason “people are bitter, angry with hate speeches which lead to crisis, war and even terrorism”.
Well, it is easy to see why Okorocha would become the butt of jokes. When a man consistently coughs up toxic policies, whatever else he does naturally becomes suspect. But on this ‘happiness’ thing, we only need to look deeper to see that Okorocha may not be entirely wrong on all counts.
Across the world, governments, organizations and civil society have come to consider happiness as the proper measure of social progress and the goal of public policy and are using happiness indicators to inform their policy-making decisions. Here’s a brief story of how this came about.
While the debate raged (and perhaps continues to rage) among economists whether or not the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a Keynesian tool popularised in the post-WWII era, was a true measure of economic development, and while many progressive economists pushed for a more holistic approach to measuring prosperity and progress, with some arguing for the use of the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan, a small, relatively isolated country at the base of the Himalayas in Asia, in 1972 coined the phrase Gross National Happiness (GNH).
In 2010, the Centre for Bhutan Studies developed a Gross National Happiness Index to measure people’s happiness. The index has nine components, called domains, comprising psychological wellbeing, health, education, time use, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience and living standards, according to an article on Bhutan Times of January 29, 2017 found on pressreader.com.
The Bhutan experience would eventually inspire other countries to pursue broader measures of development. For example, France commissioned a study on alternative gauges of economic welfare and the impact of happiness in an economy; Britain commenced a ‘Measuring National Well-Being’ programme; the EU began to pursue a programme dubbed ‘Beyond GDP’; the World Bank suggested the use of the Human Development Index and Adjusted Net Savings as alternatives to GDP; the OECD in June 2016 committed itself “to redefine the growth narrative to put people’s well-being at the center of governments’ efforts”, and in February 2017, the United Arab Emirates held a full-day World Happiness meeting as part of the World Government Summit.
But perhaps the most important influence of the Bhutan experience, in spite of the criticisms against it, is that it inspired the United Nations to action. In July 2011, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted resolution 65/309 tagged ‘Happiness: Towards a Holistic Definition of Development’, calling for a “holistic approach to development” aimed at promoting sustainable happiness and wellbeing. The UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/66/281 recognized “that the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal” and the UN invited member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use the data to help guide public policy.
In April 2012, the first UN High Level Meeting, called ‘Wellbeing and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm’, was held, chaired by the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Prime Minister Jigme Thinley of Bhutan. It was there that the first World Happiness Report was released as a foundational text for the UN High Level Meeting.
Every year since then, with the exception of 2014, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network has published The World Happiness Report, a landmark survey of the state of global happiness. This year, the report has been supported by a generous three-year grant from the Ernesto Illy Foundation. The World Happiness Index surveys numerous people from various countries around the world in search of which country has the happiest population. Denmark came tops in 2016, followed closely by Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway. This year, Norway has jumped to 1st place, followed by Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland.
Similarly, March 20 is celebrated globally as the International Day of Happiness (World Happiness Day). The day was instituted by Jayme Illien, then United Nations adviser, on June 28, 2012 when, following a multiyear campaign initiated in 2011 by the Illien Global Public Benefit Corporation, all 193 member states of the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted UN resolution 66/281.
I have taken this pain to show what an important factor happiness has become in measuring world progress. On this score, therefore, Okorocha is not entirely mad to have created a Ministry of Happiness and Purpose Fulfilment. If anything, he is in tune with global thinking.
I have read a certain ’Seun Oremade who claims that Okorocha did not appoint a Commissioner for Happiness. Oremade’s claim is that Okorocha, during the swearing-in ceremony of 28 commissioners in the state, only joked that as Deputy Chief of Staff in charge of domestic and internal affairs, his sister, Ogechi Ololo, was Commissioner for Happiness and Couples’ Fulfilment. That claim is very doubtful. If it were true, the government would not have gone through the pain of clarifying that it meant Purpose Fulfilment and not Couples’ Fulfilment.
But assuming Okorocha created the new ministry by default, it is all for good, in my view. That is the direction the world is going.
My only worry is that the man now peddling happiness is a sadist who has sown seeds of sorrow in the hearts of many citizens of Imo State since May 2011. Only God knows how many workers and pensioners in the state have died waiting for their pittance, or how many more have been economically emasculated by his many anti-people policies.
Okorocha has no happiness to give. Moreover, happiness does not happen by declaration or legislation. Build good roads, provide potable water, create employment, pay workers and pensioners, make life liveable for people – that’s all.
But assuming, just assuming, that Okorocha has any happiness to offer, I’m certain the only people that will get a piece of it will be members of the Okorocha family and their in-laws and friends, given his antecedents.
Imo people have given up. They are anxiously waiting for 2019.
CHUKS OLUIGBO
