What Buhari told NIPSS graduates

Population growth and human capital development occupied the thoughts of Senior Executive Course 2020 participants at NIPSS.  MUHAMMAD TANKO SHITTU writes on how President Muhammadu Buhari shared in their thoughts at their graduation ceremony recently.
Population explosion with an estimated figure that has placed Nigeria at more than two hundred million people has become a great source of concern by those in the helm of affairs in the country.President Muhammadu Buhari had expressed his concern saying Nigeria’s elites have the responsibility to either fix Nigeria or mar it for the overall good of the nation. His thoughts and concerns were echoed during the last graduation ceremony of Senior Executive Course 42 participants at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) Kuru, Jos.


Buhari tasked elites
The president’s concern was on how best Nigerian elites would think to positively plan for the good of the growing population with specific emphasis on human capital development.According to the president, “At a time when our country is facing myriad of challenges, the need for high quality strategic thinking and action across the public and the private sectors have never been greater. Elites must bear responsibility for the state of the nation and for fixing it.”President Buhari was of the opinion that the unique burden that accorded them  the privilege of being elites has placed the fate of two hundred million people upon their shoulders. Continuing further he said, “In the context of a nation in which the majority of citizens are poor and illiterate, the educated and the accomplished, the wealthy, those in positions of authority in government and its agencies, the legislature or judiciary clearly belong to a privileged class,” he emphasised.According to him; “In the context of our nation, the elites are found in academia, religion, government and business across formal professional cadres and of course the arts.”He said their privileges manifest as easy access to capital or patronage through their social networks and placements in highly competitive prestigious institutions. He noted that as elites, they are better off than the vast majority of their peers.”It is my conviction that the elites both individually and collectively have a responsibility and an obligation to society to plan it, organise it, order or reorder it and above all to make sacrifices for it for the maximum benefit of all.”  He said further that, “It is their duty to find common cause across professions, vocations, ethnicities and faiths defining the minimum terms and conditions for the safety, security, growth and prosperity of the communities.”The president harped on the situation whereby when things do not work, they explain by reaching for terms like ‘the Nigerian Factor’, ‘the system’ or ‘vested interests’. He added that they use these clichés to deflect responsibilities and externalise culpability even for the institutions under their charge. He was of the view that those terms are diversionary because they refer to the actions or inactions of people like them and people of privileged positions who have shirked the high responsibility that accompanies their status. 


His charge to the graduates
The 74 course participants made up of males and females did their research on the theme, ‘Population Growth and Human Capital Development’. At their graduation, President Buhari said as senior officials in the public sector bureaucracy, captains in the private sector, commanding officers in the armed forces and the law enforcement establishment, they have both the responsibilities and power to promote new progressive ways of doing things.”This is a burden that cannot be escaped or deferred,” he charged. According to him, “The burden of privilege is rooted less in altruism than in enlightened self-interest. It is the recognition that no society can endure where the majority is poor and a privileged minority monopolises access to opportunity or in which justice and security are perceived as the preserve of the powerful or where the majority, confounded by the asymmetries of wealth and power in the society become unable to see legitimate pathways of self-actualisation and success.” He charged both NIPSS as an institution as well as the graduands as individual elites saying, “The times levy a demand on institutions such as this one and on its graduates for innovation and creative intelligence in addressing our national challenges.”


Youths as large population
The president was so worried about the restiveness of a fast growing youths population to an extent that he recalled the recent EndSARS upheavals in the country.”In recent months, we saw what happened when resentment, bitterness and discontent snowballed into social unrest. We have also seen that when order collapses, all of us are directly and indirectly in peril.”President Buhari further stressed that enlightened self-interest is an entirely unsentimental calculation which holds that the lives, livelihoods and investments of the privileged are truly safe only when they expand the circle of opportunities and prosperity. “This means tackling social inequality and entrenching better standards of living for the generality of the people,” he added. The president said, “As custodians of the social order, we cannot fail to realise that a fast-growing young and dynamic population that feels alienated and disempowered is a threat to stability.”Accordingly, he stated it is for that reason his administration has set for itself a target of lifting 100 million people out of poverty over the next decade, saying that it calls for the expansion of access to opportunities and investment in human capital development on a scale that is unprecedented in the history of the country.

Transition from public to private sector-driven economy
President Buhari further opined that in Nigeria at times the relationship between the public sector and private sector is adversarial, adding that the country has come a long way from the era in which the government was the principal actor in the economy.He however said today, it is recognised that prosperity and growth lie in unleashing the Nigerian genius for enterprise and industry that is domiciled in her private sector and that the role of the government is now primarily that of a facilitator and an enabler.”The old dichotomy between the state and the market no longer applies. We recognise that the path to the future would be paved by consolidating the interdependence of these sectors. “This is why we are building a new ethic of collaboration in which the public sector sees its role as enabling the private sector to perform optimally,” he said.Importantly, Buhari said, job creation and youth empowerment can be undertaken at a scale by the private sector, saying however that it requires government officials to encourage enterprise by promoting the ease of doing business. According to him, for many Nigerian entrepreneurs, the government is perceived more as a hindrance than a help whether in terms of taxation, infrastructural deficits and the general lack of an enabling environment which ought not to be so. President Buhari concluded by saying that, “Great societies are built by a critical mass of citizens that are guided by enlightened self-interest.” 

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