VIEWPOINT VIEWPOINT BY TUNJI OLAOPA VIEWPOINT IN BRIEF A professor’s life as metaphor for public service
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HE lifetime and career of Professor Ojetunji Aboyade — father, friend, economist, administrator, Commander of the Order of Niger (CON) and public intellectual par excellence—constitute a profound intellectual and practical mine of ideas and ideals for a historical and national re-evaluation of our collective struggle as Nigerians. As his biographer, I barely succeeded in plucking the depth of his awesome life and story in A Prophet is with Honour: The Life and Times of Ojetunji Aboyade published in 1997. The nation has a lot to tap from his solid policy and management genius”. I was still struggling with some of the historical dynamics within which Aboyade worked and experienced in Nigeria as an academic, technocrat and administrator. Of course, Aboyade recognized that wielding political power would have made a whole lot of difference in the attempt of his generation to institute fundamental changes in the policy making framework of the Nigerian state, yet he drew back. Professor Aboyade lived in a period in history when Nigeria was seriously searching for the right mix of policies, ideas and methodologies to chart a path to national greatness. It became imperative, as a matter of national urgency, to constitute a storm troop of academic, technocratic and managerial elites to chart the right course for a post-colonial state already compromised by the colonial geometry of power.
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hus, Aboyade found him self in the enviable intellectual cum policy circle made up (not in any order of age or geo-political representation) of the likes of Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, Pius Okigbo, Wole Soyinka, Ukpabi Asika, Akin Mabogunje, Ali Akilu, Adebayo Adedeji, Allison Ayida, Chukwuka Okonjo, Sam Aluko, Bolanle Awe, Claude Ake, Billy Dudley, Ayodele Awojobi, Phillip Asiodu, Ahmed Joda, Clement Isong, Sunday Awoniyi, Jibril Aminu, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, Michael Omolayole, Ibrahim Dasuki, Gamaliel Onosode, Christopher Kolade, Ibrahim Damcida and the rest of what has been called the “ wasted generation”. Aboyade’s life and ideals intersected the many challenges of the development agenda and the policy ambivalence that attended it. As Claude Ake rightly observed, “Here was a man who epitomised all the things we professed to value most: phenomenal learning and brilliance, patriotism, unwavering commitment to public service and the public interest, abiding faith in the potentialities of Nigeria and stoical acceptance of the effort necessary to realize them”. Yet, here was a man who
Ojetunji Aboyade and the burden of national progress aligned resources and investment to specified development outcomes though seriously undermined by a misplaced confidence in the viability of a state-led development paradigm.
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Late Professor Ojetunji Aboyade eventually died lonely in his struggle to achieve the synthesis of “knowledge, power and responsibility”.
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rofessor Aboyade’s con frontation with the intense policy environment in the 70s critically outline for us the difficulties which constitute the burden of national progress against which Nigeria’s leadership must strive if it would ever hope to escape remaining in perpetual transition. For instance, there were two serious challenges to the trajectory of policy practice for the technocrats during Aboyade’s intervention. The first, obviously, is the no-
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sectoral synergy, joint project design as well as the economies of scale needed to revise the pervasive silo mentality and territorial protection by agencies which ultimately circumscribe policy outcomes. Prof. Aboyade also had to struggle against the current pervaded by a glaring staleness of data and critical mass of policy intelligence necessary for deepening policy analysis, the poor maintenance culture, disregard for the intangibles that drive productivity, poor skill set, poor R & D investment culture, and so on. By the time the formulation of the third national development plan began, the Aboyade-in-
By rebuilding our institutions to become value-based institutions leveraging global benchmarks, Nigeria can begin to chart a path to what is possible in terms of rehabilitating the Nigerian Project
torious policy-implementation gap occasioned by the difference between the demands of policymaking, the expediencies of politics and the implementation capability readiness of the public service constrained by a limiting old public administration business model which reform demands a paradigm shift that is underpinned by deep-seated culture change and developmental industrial relations. The second challenge derives from the dominance of the recurring narrow economic perspective on policy issue with scant sensitivity for the inter- and multi-disciplinary reality required by policy management through inter-ministerial and
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duced discipline in policy and planning management had already collapsed under the weight of militarism and oil boom.
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nspite of the uncertain in terplay of policy analysis, expert advise, realpolitik, implementation and outcomes in which he operated, Aboyade consistently project his hope and optimism of a sound development agenda through a conceptual and theoretical analysis of policy and planning disciplined by empiricism. This was manifested, mostly, in his envisioning of the second national development plan around a core of national objectives and strategy that
s his own unique revi sionism of the narrow economic vision of policy in government, Aboyade established the Development Policy Centre (DPC), Ibadan, which is a structural representation of a multidisciplinary matrix Aboyade was advocating for policy research and analysis to backstop the development process. Its objective is to synthesize a sociology of development from the backdrop of policy, business, culture, value, institution, development communication, research and science and technology. It was a joint venture conceptualized with like minds and partners like Mabogunje from the academics, Omolayole from industry, Ayida from the civil service, Vincent Maduka from engineering, Bimpe Aboyade from development communication/ documentation research, Alhaji Umaru Ndanusa, from the business community and from the international community, Bax Nomvete from South Africa as well as Joe Abbey from Ghana. This led to his collaboration, with Prof. Akin Mabogunje, on the Optimum Community (OPTICOM) development approach at Awe, Oyo State. OPTICOM (an acronym given by Chief Obafemi Awolowo during a seminar interaction with the duo to integrate it into his development blueprint in 1979) was meant to make a point about the role of government as a galvanizer of development. Thus, in grassroots mobilization, Aboyade makes the critical point that it is not only what the individual does in the society that drives development, but what the government enables the individuals to achieve for themselves and their society. As Chinua Achebe rightly observes,
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ssentially, Aboyade was an elite without being elitist. He served his nation and he served his people. Does Nigeria cultivate her heroes? Ask Ake. Ask Soyinka. Ask Aboyade. Wole Soyinka delivers a blunt on the death of Aboyade: “Nigeria kills us slowly; one by one, but surely. In spite of all these summation, Professor Ojetunji Aboyade — development thinker, conceptual worker, policy adviser, public servant, husband, father and patriot — died, on that fateful 31st of December, 1994, with a smile on his face. Has the nation
taken the first step in deploying her heroes and heroic ideas towards building a great Nigeria? By rebuilding our institutions to become valuebased institutions leveraging global benchmarks, Nigeria can begin to chart a path to what is possible in terms of rehabilitating the Nigerian Project. Aboyade was a product of an institution; the university and he gave his best. I doubt if we have even began to understand the extent of that kind of public service as sacrifice, and the depth of ideas, merit, selflessness in cause of national development.
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e however get on a dif ferent turf in terms of whether the nation recognizes the herculean struggle of its heroes, dead or alive. Does Nigeria cultivate her heroes? Ask Ake. Ask Soyinka. Ask Aboyade. For Claude Ake, the paradox of Nigeria is that it needs heroes, in fact, it yearns for them; yet, it fails to acknowledge their existence and continually derails their efforts. Wole Soyinka delivers a blunt on the death of Aboyade: “Nigeria kills us slowly; one by one, but surely. In spite of all these summation, Professor Ojetunji Aboyade — development thinker, conceptual worker, policy adviser, public servant, husband, father and patriot — died, on that fateful 31st of December, 1994, with a smile on his face. The difference between a nation that succeeds and the one that fails however, is that readiness to deploy heroic ideas and ideals and, with political will, follow them through. Has the nation taken the first step in deploying her heroes and heroic ideas towards building a great Nigeria? I suggest we look to the education system breeding ground and our institutions for an answer. By rebuilding our institutions to become value-based institutions leveraging global benchmarks, Nigeria can begin to chart a path to what is possible in terms of rehabilitating the Nigerian Project.
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boyade was a product of an institution; the university and he gave his best. I doubt if we have even began to understand the extent of that kind of public service as sacrifice, and the depth of ideas, merit, selflessness in cause of national development. It is enough for me that I knew this man and was able to gain privileged entry into his amazing and intriguing world. I consider it as one of my tasks in life and part of my service to the Nigerian nation to continually highlight the significance of heroes of the Nigerian Project. That was the essence of the biography. If I had the opportunity to revisit his epitaph, I won’t hesitate to write: “Here lies a simple man, just a man but a patriot and public servant, who attempted to wrest the albatross from around the neck of his country. The frontiers he suggested still lie untrampled; his beacon is still indicating a path to follow.” z Tunji Olaopa, a federal permanent secretary, wrote in from Abuja.