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Prof Chris Nwaokobia jnr

THE IMPERATIVENESS OF A NEW NATIONAL ORIENTATION PARADIGM III

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Prof.-Chris-Nwaokobia

“Only he deserves power who every day justifies it.”
– Dag Hammarskjold 1905-61.

There is a sweltering Harmattan of expectation; a deluge of hope; a mountain of anticipation; and the profound euphoria that underscores the faith that the Nigerian people have in the CHANGE MOVEMENT must determine the thrust of the present watch, yes the masses believe that with President MohammaduBuhari and the APC comes a new paradigm that must redefine leadership and governance in this clime, it is believed and rightly so that it will no longer be business as usual, may God help us.
To hit the ground running we must realize the urgency of now, we must be conscious of the fact that when Nigerians chose change over continuity what happened in actual fact was a ballot based revolution. We cannot assume that it was a mere political contestation that saw the APC taking the spoils, no it wasn’t. Nigerians voted for CHANGE against an era that turned governance to a Bazaar and liberalized corruption. Nigerians voted against corruption, such is the incontrovertible challenge on our hands, we must deal with corruption.
We must create monuments of deterrence and monuments of reference across the Nigerian space. We must repudiate corruption, sleaze and fleece at all levels of governance and teach our countrymen and women the primacy of service to fatherland. We must overhaul the moral margins of State and National Honours, if need be we must revoke all honours conferred on individuals who have been convicted for a crime, and refuse to honour Nigerians whose propensities are manifestly corrupt and egocentric. We must teach our children the nobility of hard-work and set a new praxis that repudiates corruption and corruptive proclivities.
We must redefine our Federal Character normative such that at all times our enterprise must encourage excellence over mediocrity. It must always be the best man for the job irrespective of State, zone or region. We cannot lower the bar because State A or B doesn’t meet the criteria, Nigeria must be treated as a huge canvass on which only the best should paint. Our country must be treated as a huge national theatre where only the very best must perform; such is the minimum quid pro quo for greatness and progress.
I have profuse faith in the feats we must score, I have never been more hopeful in our journey to nationhood like presently, I see the promise-land. Some may think that my hope is superfluous and outlandish but I know Nigeria. I know that we are a people with undying resolve to reach great heights. I know that we are resilient specie. I know that we are kindred of the Great Zik of Africa; scions of the sage Awo; kith of the pragmatic Sarduana; kin of the dogged Isaac AdakaBoro; and offshoot of the many greats that berthed this nation, so before us is the inviolable challenge to make Nigeria great again.
The Green-White-Green must be seen beyond the fabric and treated as our collective identity. We must locate the path to the Isle of Peace, Unity and Good-Hope through a deliberate and conscious effort at thinning down the walls of creed and clan. We must raise our interactive bar to no less an estate where religion becomes a personal affair, and on our national stage make the second stanza of the National Anthem our national prayer. The Christian and Muslim prayer normative in State functions must be made Shibboleth, and in its place ‘Oh God of Creation’ rehearsed for such is our national prayer.
A Nigerian child doesn’t need to know if I am a Christian or a Muslim or perhaps a Traditional worshipper, the child wants to see a leader who cares, a leader that creates jobs, a man who doesn’t steal and a leader that empathizes. If you must know the truth our people are tired of rulers who profess one religion or another but whose daily regimen vitiates even the least expectations of their faith. The linchpin of the new national orientation paradigm must be service delivery, patriotism and commitment to the good of Fatherland; yes it must be COUNTRY FIRST.
We must review the cost of governance vis-à-vis the emolument of public office holders; we cannot pay political office holders so much salary and allowance in a country so economically rudderless, bare-chested and anaemic and yet lay claim to seeking economic recovery and national growth, no, we must change the way things are done. The urgency of now is the imperativeness of a new paradigm, we must begin a massive rework of values in governance such that leadership must become responsive and responsible to the people, and such is the only permissible minimum.
Those who see partisan loyalty as the first course in the national buffet must realize that without Nigeria the dining table will be scant or perhaps non-existent.We must therefore make the praxis of our three course meal; yes our full course, Patriotism, Service and True Brotherhood. A nation of patriots thinks more of the good of nation and its people. Service to nation is service to all, and above all true brotherhood devolves on both, when governance delivers on the promises of democracy beyond the banal bounds of partisan, religious, regional, ethnic and parochial prejudices, true brotherhood fosters.
Like the prized dietary three course meal normative, our nation is a cord of three; yes we are a nation of three major tribes divided providentially by the waters of the River Niger and the Benue into three main regions, the North, the West and the East, we are a people of three major faiths, Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Religion; and remember how the Christian Holy Book put it, ‘the cord of two is strong, the cord of three who can break?’, need I remind you that the Muslim object of prayer the ‘Tesbiu’ is an unbreakable cord of three, and traditionally three represents the unison of spirit, soul and body not despising the other elements.
Countrymen and women, please be mindful of this reality that no nation that is a cord of three major peoples and tendencies has ever broken up, most have survived gruesome wars, segregation and internecine conflagrations to weave the great nations they became, Britain, USA, Australia, South Africa et al are lucid mementoes, tell it therefore to those preaching the message of separation and to those drumming the gongs of self-determination that we are a great nation woven by an infallible God.
The urgency of now compels a huge cross on this generation of Nigerians, it is much too profound now that Nigerians voted for change in the status quo ante bellum, before May 29, 2015 many infractions may pass unnoticed but today the margins are different and expectations mountainous, we must not only deliver concrete democracy dividends but we must unite the masses of our people and make the good of Nigerian the summumbonum.
We must aggregate at no greater pedestal but that which must prize excellence over mediocrity, and make the greatness of Nigeria our collective primacy.We must congregate, Christians, Muslims, Animists, Traditionalists and the likes at the altar where nothing counts but the good of fellow countrymen and women. And we must assemble at the place where ‘though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand’; such is the basic practical minimum sine qua non for growth and progress.
In the final analysis we must seize the moment and make Nigeria the pride of all, citizens and foreigners alike. We must begin a massive overhaul of our collective morality and etch hard-work as prime on our corporate canvass. We must passionately rework the margins of leadership such that egocentrics would flee the political turf. We must rejig our economy by exploring other sources of revenue outside this sickening monolithic dependence on oil. We must reawaken the time tested values of patriotism as key to national growth and encourage discipline and discretion across the various strata of state and society.
We must work so that in the end posterity will say of this generation of Nigerians, when the moment of change came, a vibrant people came at it, took it, and transformed their nation such that it never remained the same, nay this must indeed be done in the positive as the contrary is manifestly unthinkable, morally impermissible and divinely unpardonable. God Bless Nigeria.
CONCLUDED.
Prof. Chris Nwaokobia Jnr
Director General CHANGE AMBASSADORS OF NIGERIA CAN.
Lawyer, Writer & Humanist.
46 Adegoke Street, off Masha Road, Surulere, Lagos.
Email: chrisnwaokobiajnr@gmail.com
Tel: 08023361983, 08038604312, 08173958013, 08056359127.
Pin: 27169311
Pin: 5588BE17
Pin: 55EDA68C.

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Prof Chris Nwaokobia jnr

THE IMPERATIVENESS OF A NEW NATIONAL ORIENTATION PARADIGM II

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Prof.-Chris-Nwaokobia

“Today is the moment that makes great feats possible, yesterday is history, the future scores the moment, we must work hard in the NOW such that posterity would say of this generation of Nigerians, when the moment of change came a great band of patriots rose up and took it.”- Prof Chris Nwaokobia Jnr.
Since the March 28 and the April 14, 2015 General Elections our nation has recorded about 23 Trekkers and Bikers,the young and the old alike, traversing the nation, doing unimaginable distances with glee, some in support of Buhari, some pro Goodluck Jonathan for his presumed love for peace ditto the concession of defeat at the polls, and some for peaceful coexistence, unity and progress. In all of this the score is manifest; democracy is the winner and Nigeria the victor. By this Nigerians have said in no uncertain terms that we want to remain together and make our Fatherland great.
The profound euphoria that inundates the public space makes the template for a better Nigeria less tenuous, it leaves our nation with great faith in the oneness or so of our people. The truth is that we have more reasons to stay united than the scores that disunite us. We have shown an unrivalled bond for national affinity and consanguinitythan we have of our differences. Yes we can make the best of this halcyon moment; we can like the Phoenix recreate Nigeria.
A new national orientation paradigm must seek inclusivity and genuine brotherhood predicated on no less a margin than the development of the human capital, excellence must be the watch word. We must cease to permit and pardon mediocrity on the altar of the Federal Character normative. We must begin a rework of our morals and mores such that all Nigerians will embracepatriotic proclivities and enable a progressiveredefinition of citizenship. We must sediment values that confer pride in this collective constituency knowing that we have got no other but Nigeria.
The zoning and power sharing normative are only stop-gap measures, they are values that appear conciliatory and inclusive but in actuality they divide us and deepen our differences. The defeat of the PDP at the last General Polls and the fact that for the first time since the Nigerian Civil War we saw an ethnically divided and polarised polity is a lucid manifestation of the failure of the zoning, power sharing cum Federal Character ordinance and normative. It is a copious minus for debaters who insist on zoning and power sharing as the path to effective national integration.
Thankfully with a CHANGE driven regime I’m confident that we shall begin the excavation of the needed pebbles that must unite us as one great people. I’m convinced that when we make the development of the human capital the major trust of governance every other thing will follow. With sound education and technological growth comes the realisation of a universe without bounds, and by Jove a nation with fewer dichotomies, bias and variegation, and such is the minimum template.
When we begin to see Nigeria as our major collective; when we begin a collective overhaul of our morality in and out of power; when service to nation becomes the narrowest permissible margin for leadership; when East, West, North and South or if you like our six geo-political zones make dedicated service to the people the governmental minimum; when making real the promises of democracy becomes the summum bonum; when creed and clan regresses to personal loyalties rather national mantra; and when CHANGE deals with all Nigerians as equals then the profound voyage to our Isles of Good Hope shall have commenced.
As a people we have reached that turn in history where quick fixes and stop-gap measures at enhancing national cohesion must be jettisoned. We cannot afford the luxury of un-researched response to serious national questions. The greatest threat to our nationhood is not in our differences but in the politics thereto, it is in corruption and in the corruptive demolition of our values, it is in the egocentric invocation of ethnic prejudices, it is in the devaluation of the allowable leadership minimum, and it is in the deficiency of organisational quid pro quo such that mediocrity and compromise have become the benchmark for a successful climb on the ladder of power.
We must begin a rework of the values on which we predicate our National Honours. We must remove our National Honours from the platform of political freebies. We must deepen the measure of value and price the Green-White-Green as our grandest prize. We must not only insist on political appointments that adhere to the ‘round peg in a round hole or square peg in a square hole’ normative but on appointees whose love and passion for nation is manifest and profound.
The urgency of the now is hinged on the vote for change which the Nigerian people made when a new order was thumb-printed into time, we cannot overlook or undermine this reality, Nigerians are congregated at the mount of great hope where it will no longer be business as usual, anything short of this will fuel a national angst that may just fritter away the pervasive goodwill that the GMB magic enjoys. The Leaders of our great Party the APC may well take heed of this profound urgency; we must hit the ground running and rightly so.
I have chosen faith over despair; I have elected change over business as usual; I have studied the Nigerian resilience and the Nigerian brotherhood; I have more than enough reason to conclude that it maynot yet be Uhuru, but we are getting there. It was said that incumbents scarcely lose elections in Africa but Goodluck Jonathan lost. It was said that only a moneybag can win a Presidential election in Nigeria but GMB isn’t a moneybag. In all of this none of the chief gladiators is the winner or the loser, Nigeria is definitely the winner, so I cannot be more hopeful.
We must take the National Orientation Agency and its message to the streets; we must encourage the emergence of national corps and volunteers to whom our national flag and memorabilia will count hugely. We must raise our National Anthem and the pledge to the status of our national prayer such that the Christian, and or the Muslim opening and closing prayer normative will cease to occupy our socio-political stage; creed should be treated as personal and denied its national vehemence, that way we can diminish all political allegiance to faith, and that way our politico-social allegiance will be to Country first.
In my voyage across the country whilst campaigning for the high office of President in 2011, I discovered chiefly that those who believe in this collective patrimony and are hopeful of the best for Nigeria remain in massive preponderance. I won the greatest chunk of votes in my entire haul from the Northern States of Katsina, Kano, Kaduna and Sokoto, my home State of Delta perhaps felt that I was too young at 40 to vie for that office, however that experience taught me a great lesson, one that fuels my faith in the great nation that we can weave when the things that work littleness are made Shibboleth and those that work for greatness made prime.
Countrymen and women, we cannot continue to trade blames, we cannot overlook the fact that every region has its share of guilt in the national drift. We cannot excuse the collateral damage that un-studied policies and un-researched cum emotive programmatic has brought Nigeria, what Nigeria needs is responsible and responsive leadership not ethnic jingoists and religious fundamentalists. What Nigeria needs are good men who must redefine our values and deepen our morals. What Nigeria needs are leaders who will kill corruption and give life to committed service to Fatherland. And what Nigeria needs is a new regime of rectitude and patriotism.
God bless Nigeria.

Prof. Chris Nwaokobia Jnr
Director General CHANGE AMBASSADORS OF NIGERIA CAN.
Lawyer, Writer & Humanist.
46 Adegoke Street, off Masha Road, Surulere, Lagos.
Email: chrisnwaokobiajnr@gmail.com
Tel: 08023361983, 08038604312, 08173958013, 08056359127.
Pin: 27169311, 5588BE17, 55EDA68C.

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Prof Chris Nwaokobia jnr

THE IMPERATIVENESS OF A NEW NATIONAL ORIENTATION PARADIGM I

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“Nationhood is definitely the product of hard-work; it is not an event nor is it the product of happenstance, wistfulness and or presumptuous historicity. Nations are built not wished.” – Prof Chris Nwaokobia Jnr.
The aftermath of the 2015 General Elections leaves our Country with profound questions seeking urgent answers; questions ranging from how tenuous the woodwork of this collective edifice sustains to how variegated the fouled waters of our corporate existence appear. We cannot pretend that all is right; we cannot pretend that governance will sail pretty without national cohesion; we cannot pretend that the CHANGE we preached will not meet with despair if we do not etiolate the fires that raged during the campaigns; and we cannot pretend that all is well.
We saw a campaign that was inundated with hate, a campaign that was replete with caustic diatribes, a campaign that snow-balled the deluge of dichotomies that litters this space; the dichotomies of creed, of clan, and of region dominated our politics. Debates on issues were in short supply, the prelude to March 28 and April 11 saw a Nigeria split effusively and profusely along the lines of ethnicity, religion and region. That the CHANGE MOVEMENT prevailed at the Polls compels a national task that must be handled as imperative and germane. We must heal the wounds and unite our peoples.
The linchpin of the present challenge is a vibrant national orientation paradigm. We must above all emphasize the beauties of this enterprise. We must water the trees of patriotism. We must clear the bushes of ethnic distrust. We must level the mountains of religious fundamentalism. We must diminish the shrubs of partisan discord. We must etiolate the fires of the pre and post-election angst. And we must coalesce at a place where Nigeria becomes the winner.
Today our National Orientation mantra must soar beyond ONE NATION GREAT PEOPLE; we must begin to address the fundamentals of national integration, we must locate the cords that unite us and prize the jewellery that presents us as the hope of a continent in search of leadership. We must remember the halcyon beats of our history, we cannot forget that not only were we a nation of great wealth, we were the Big Brother to most African nations. We cannot overlook the realities of our history, and we must seek to replicate and surpass the great mementoes of our co-existence.
I have worked my mind on the realities of history. I have discovered that most nations emerged like Phoenixes from the ashes of the Civil Wars that sought to immolate them to forge great symphonies of brotherhood and community. History is replete with Statesmen who did not sulk over the pain of battle and the internecine conflagrations that traumatized their space, but who seized the moment and wove nations out of variegated seas of distrust and angst. We can yet do the same.
I was born a year after the Nigerian Civil War, I did not meet three of my grandparents because they died during the War. I was suckled by the only one standing, Ma Christiana Nwanze my Mother’s mother. She did a marvellous job teaching me to love and to think. She was so forgiving that she saw nothing but a great Nigeria where the difference in creed and clan will count for nothing, where our strength will devolve on the well of our minds and the content of our character. She died at 92 never loosing that faith.
She lived in the North before the 1966 pogrom, she returned home just before the Civil War, she lost her businesses in Northern Nigeria to the War but that did not stop her first daughter Aunty Justina my mother’s elder sister from making Funtua and later Malumfashi in Katsina State her abode and base for close to 30years after the War. I learnt from this the inviolableness of our togetherness. My Igbo brothers have made the North their home irrespective of the many pitfalls that rehearse the shortness of our National Orientation stratagem.
Lagos is today a copious experimentation of our love for each other; we can replicate the same spectacle across the country. The shortcut to the nation we seek is to make patriotism our pride, wealth and job creation our passion, corruption our national foe, social security a collective challenge, and to make a rework of our national canvass an urgent imperative. Yes, we can together as a People create a Nigerian Dream, we can build a great Nation where the prime is the primacy of lives and properties, where the summon bonum shall be the well-being of the masses, and the centre-point of our collective intercourse COUNTRY FIRST.
I am not saying that we do not have cause to worry; I am saying that it is not sufficient to lose faith in the journey set before us. I am not saying that Nigeria has been fair to all, I am saying that we can make Nigeria a fair, just and an equitable enterprise. I am not saying that leadership has been responsible; I am saying that WE can make leadership responsible and responsive to all. I am saying that we can set forth to the Isle of Peaceful Co-existence when we make followership engaging and commit leadership to decorum and sincerity.
An era where the National Orientation Agency made its primary responsibility reportage and documentary of and on terror and the attendant war thereto must be made Shibboleth. It is incontrovertible truism that that error dealt some blow on our collective psyche and mores. A vibrant national orientation paradigm must look beyond villainy and see our common nationality, our common humanity and our collective citizenry. A proactive national orientation must seek to foist a template of dialogue and national concord such is the basic quid pro quo.
We must create a national orientation network that must set out at dawn without hate or bias to unite all fair interests, and begin an overhaul of our collective morality where imperative. We must make noble values prime and celebrate patriots. We must lampoon quick fixes, corruption and villainy and hail hard-work and rectitude. We must salute dedication to service of fatherland and condemn any form of dereliction of national trust. We must create for posterity fabrics of reference, such that must confer honour on acts of heroism and patriotism. And we must create monuments of deterrence such that our nation must flee from fleece, sleaze and thieving.
A national orientation praxis that seeks the reorientation of villains is germane, and the one that seeksto inspire the virtuous to continue the noble stride for the good of fatherland is imperative. I cannot be more hopeful that the incoming regime understands the urgency of now. We are here because we rode on the mantra of CHANGE; we cannot therefore sacrifice same at the altar of politics. We must fix square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes. We must as was promised the electorate create jobs, and kill corruption. We must ensure human capital development and improve national security. We must provide social security and more homes for the masses, and make real the promises of our 31page manifesto. We must make true the promises of democracy.
We are at that point in history where Statesmanship latches in on the monumental goodwill it enjoys, we have an unequalled goodwill and as Statesmen we must hit the ground running. We must in all that we do engrave the praxis NO LONGER BUSINESS AS USUAL in our collective thought. We must wage the war against indiscipline and fight the good fight of faith.We must make Peace, Progress and Prosperity the Nigerian Dream and work for all that must guarantee this 3Ps.
Countrymen and women, the fierce urgency of now is such that we must bury the hatchet, all hatchets and confront our fears. Do not forget that fear thrives only when False Evidence Appears Real, the truth is that the 54years plus of our nation is not all melancholic, we have a litany of highs and lows, and we must search the reasons for the lows, fix them and soar, whilst celebrating our highs. We must create a nation that shall truly surmount her differences and build the harmony that shall lead Africa to the top of the new world. Yes we can.
The moment is indiscriminate of which Party controls State A or State B, the urgency of the now demands nothing but service to the country and the citizenry. We must rise above partisanship and make this country the pride of all. We must together chase the Nigerian dream. We must dedicatedly work for the good of all. We must make the amazingly munificence with which the good Lord has blessed our nation count for nothing BUT for Peace, Progress and Prosperity.
We owe this moment to the Almighty who brought our boisterous planet out of primal vapour. We owe this epoch to the electorate. We owe this era to the many victims of the conflagrations that trouble our space. And we owe the reality of the present challenge to history, we must work such that in the end it will be said that there came a moment in time and a great people came at it. We must work such that posterity will remember in halcyon light this generation of Nigerians, to the bridge my Countrymen.
In confronting the moment we must not be unmindful of the fact that the task before us is onerous, the faint will say monumental but the faithful must seize the moment and show the world what great people we are. I cannot be more confident that WE CAN because the body language of our President Elect assures us that things will be done differently. I cannot be more hopeful now that the mantra of CHANGE resonates. I am indeed positive that we shall set forth at dawn to do that which is needful and imperative. GOD BLESS NIGERIA.

Prof. Chris Nwaokobia Jnr
Director General CHANGE AMBASSADORS OF NIGERIA CAN.
Lawyer, Writer & Humanist.
Email: chrisnwaokobiajnr@gmail.com
Tel: 08023361983, 08038604312, 08073958013
Pin: 27169311, 5588BE17, 55EDA68C.

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