By Razaq Bamidele
Joko Okupe is the Founder and member, Board of Trustees of the Mindshift Advocacy for Development Initiative. In a media interactive session in Lagos, the Ogun-State born development advocate took a critical look at Nigeria’s situation and declared that the challenges, facing the country go far beyond what only guns and bullets can address. According to him, it would amount to miscalculation to limit the security challenges to Boko Haram insurgents, kidnapping, banditry and armed robbery, adding that “as a nation, there are many insecure areas of our life that, perhaps, nobody is paying attention to.”
What is your take on the security challenges, facing the country, especially since the past six years that this administration assumed power?
It is a very complex situation to analyse. But my opinion is that the insecurity that we have in the nation now is as a result of insincerity of leadership in relaying matters exactly as they are. There is insincerity of leadership in confessing their weaknesses and limitations. Insincerity of leadership in opening up in openness to the citizens and insincerity of leadership in saying one thing and doing exactly another. If we look at a lot of these things that I’ve outlined now, they give birth to so many ugly children. When we talk about insecurity, we need to have a little bit of a shift because we are looking at security and insecurity in terms of, may be, lives and properties. The default thinking that anybody would have is that government needs to protect us with arms, with ammunitions, with security apparatus as it were. But as we speak now, as a nation, there are many insecure areas of our life that, perhaps, nobody is paying attention to.
Like what and what?
What about food insecurity? What about insecurity of the infrastructure that we live in? In the last couple of years we’ve had more states in the nation getting flooded like we never used to have them before. Erosion has eaten a lot of our Eastern states. People’s houses are collapsing right under them. Lives are being lost. What about insecurity to our lives, even from the lack of proper handling of the issue of counterfeiting and adulteration in Nigeria – where many Nigerians are using fake drugs, eating poisoned foods? You hear of houses collapsing in some parts of the country. Why are the houses collapsing? Probably, because, some of the building materials used to build these houses were inferior in quality. We can go on and on! Now between us, guns and bullets cannot free us from these insecurities that we have spoken about. Nobody seems to be looking at them.
But, what do you think are the causes of so much insecurity in the country?
Some of the people that engage in fomenting these troubles are involved basically because they are not gainfully engaged. How did we get to a point where a bulk of the population like that is not gainfully engaged? Something went wrong somewhere! When we look at this insecurity, I opine simply that it is the insincerity of leadership – between leaders and the citizens, between leaders and the followers. If I promised something that when I enter into a public office I would do this or that, and I get into that office and I see that what I promised I could do, in reality, I cannot do it, I have to be open about it.
In relation to what you are saying about insincerity, could you assess the current administration’s performance in six years?
The government has not been sincere with us! We do have other nations of the world where there’s this value that I am talking about where a government official can actually come out and apologise to citizens that we are sorry, we missed it in this area and got things wrong. This was what we thought we were going to be able to do but with the situation on the ground, we are sorry we will not be able to afford to do it. However, we will look at ways out. That is sincerity of government.
What do you think makes government not to be sincere?
Hidden agenda, a lot of times! In some situations with us there is a calculated attempt to deceive. You know you can deliberately deceive. You know that these things you are saying are not true, you’re going to do it, you are not going to make any effort towards it but you make people believe you are going to do it. Just make people to believe. Leadership sometimes forgets that people don’t forget. Majority may forget but some don’t forget that you said; this is what we are going to do and you are doing something contrary to what you promised.
So, where does this insincerity come from?
It is just our mindset as a people. In every facet of our life, you see this thing at play. I see and hear a lot of people talking about restructuring. I do not go against what they are saying but I keep on asking a fundamental question; let us assume those asking for self-determination get their wish or desire. In as much and as long as we remain who we are now as a people, if Nigeria becomes ten countries, we are just going to have ten problems of Nigeria replicated in ten places. Because if we are still the way we are – if we are greedy, self-centered, nepotistic – you will now begin to see the inter-play of the problems of Nigeria now in those countries as intra-play in those countries. For example, if one of those countries now has five tribes, what is happening now among the major tribes in Nigeria will begin to happen among those five tribes within the new country, if we continue to think the way that we do. For example, if you talk about injustice that is a major bane in this country, we see it every day between Yoruba and fellow Yoruba, between Igbo and fellow Igbo and between Hausa and fellow Hausa. It is just that when some part or when some level of these people have access to higher power or authority then there’s an accentuation of what has always been with them. The average Nigerian wants to be an oppressor – whether he’s a gate-man or a managing director – He wants to be an oppressor. He wants to lord something over the next man. So, you go to a place where a gate-man unilaterally begins to decide who goes in and who comes out. He sets the rules and does what he likes. You get to such a place to see his boss and he tells you; “sorry, sorry, he is not available, you cannot see him.” And you can’t reach him to know whether he’s available or not. And right there in your very own eyes, somebody else will come and ask for the same person and the gate-man will open the door and let him in. So, this oppressor mentality in Nigeria cuts across every divide. So, when some people do not have access to power, these traits are subdued in them. Once they have access to power like when he becomes the Chief Driver, you will see a different animal all together.
So, if we say we are doing this self-determination of a thing that we want to do self-restructuring; the first restructuring we need to do is how we think about ourselves and fellow citizens and about the rest of the world. That is a major thing. If we don’t address that, I don’t care if we become forty countries. We are still just going to have an inter-play of the same things. In fact, what will shock you is that it will be much more intense than what we have now. Some of the communal clashes we are having in parts of this country from time past and still happening in some places now are technically of the same type. They are feuds that have been on-going for thirty something years and every other time they are killing themselves. There’s no stranger among them. So, where do we go from there?
What is this thing about Nigerians’ mindset that makes them behave the way they do?
The propensity to be unlawful is in everybody but what law does is to curb that. There is crime everywhere; crime is not domicile in Nigeria and Africa alone. You need to know the kinds that are happening in Britain or in the United States of America. In most advanced environment there are still crimes there. Our own major problem here is that there’s no consequence for unlawful behaviour. If there’s no consequence for unlawful behaviour, the people can go scot-free with whatever wrong they do. The environment doesn’t encourage good behaviour or goodness neither does it punish unlawful behaviour. It’s just a free-flowing environment. When that persists, it strengthens misbehaviour – knowing that whatever you do nothing happens. You will do it again and again and again until it becomes habitual.
What then can we do to address the situation?
Leadership and government as it is, all over the world, must ensure that there’s a consequence for unlawful behaviour. People should know that if they steal or do something that is contrary to the law, there’s consequence for it. When there are no consequences for misbehaviour and unlawful behaviour, the government will just be a toothless bulldog.
How does your organisation, Mindshift, come into play here?
Everything starts from the mind. Whatever a man becomes is an outcome of his mindset. There have been efforts in time past to try to shift this mindset. A lot of efforts that government has engaged in, in the days of ‘War Against Indiscipline’ (WAI), Mass Mobilization and Social Economic Recovery (MAMSER). Government have done a lot of those efforts to try change mindset but one of the major crises is that there seems to be no understanding of the way the mind of people works. When you don’t understand the way someone’s mind works, how can you make attempt to shift his mindset? The second point is that when leadership is trying to sell something that it is not doing, what people can obviously see that leadership is not doing, it becomes a hard task. The Mindshift perspective is a tough task but we believe that if we begin to consciously and deliberately work on the minds of people to think differently, to begin to re-think, that why did I do things the way I did it? Why are we where we are? When you re-think properly, some things begin to appear to you obviously and you tell yourself, if I want things to change, I need to do- different. It’s a very long journey and we are not unaware of it. Anytime we have activity to shift minds of human beings, it’s always up-hill task. But there are proven methodologies that have worked and will continue to work because the minds and psychological make-up of human beings remain the same. If you understand the way that mind works, we believe that we can begin to change mindsets. We are not very hopeful that we can get rapid shift but in the change theory of communities globally, it has been proven that you don’t need more than a square root of the population to make the change happen. This theory of descent that we began to face as a nation started with a handful of people and gradually they began to win people over and we’ve gotten to where we are now, but that also can be changed. So, in your immediate environment, within your circle of influence, how do people think there? What do you try to show them by example? How much do you spend with them to show the right way things ought to be? We have become a nation that looks at wrong doings and sometimes rejoice or sometimes laugh at them. We sometimes make jokes of them but unknown to many, we’re making a joke of our future and that’s what got us to where we are now. We need to take time whenever we see wrong doing to address the person involved. The person may not listen but you would have sown a seed. As many opportunities that come to you, try to correct wrong doings. Try to correct wrong values. Try to correct wrong behaviour. Perhaps, out of the number of people you talk to within a month, two persons may consider what you’re saying is true. We need to re-think. We need to reflect and we need to do-different. It is not a very popular route to go but goodness, good doings, trust, positive directions are never a game of popularity.
