NIGERIA NOW NEEDS THE RIGOUR & DISCIPLINE TO IMPLEMENT, SAYS OSINBAJO AT NIPSS GRADUATION
*Policy not the issue but implementation, VP submits

“One thing that we must bear in mind, which is my challenge to NIPSS; the problem of Nigeria has never been a shortage of ideas, there is no policy that has never been thought of, but the problem has always been implementation.

“In my respectful view, NIPSS must graduate from a “think-tank” to “do-tank”, and this is the case. We are at a point in our country where policy is not the issue, but the rigour and discipline that is required to implement is what is needed.

“I want to urge NIPSS, that our subsequent studies must be based on the need to attain some level of understanding of how to implement and get things done. Once we are able to do that, we are on our way.”

Below is the full text of the Vice President’s Speech:

SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, AT THE GRADUATION CEREMONY OF THE SENIOR EXECUTIVE COURSE 41 OF 2019 OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR POLICY AND STRATEGIC STUDIES (NIPSS) ON SATURDAY, 23RD OF NOVEMBER, 2019

It is a special pleasure to be here at this graduation ceremony of the Senior Executive Course 41 of 2019 of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies. I bring you the warm felicitations of President Muhammadu Buhari, President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. And on his behalf, I congratulate you all, participants of the Senior Executive Course, for your stellar performance and your elevation to the privilege of Member of the National Institute, MNI.

I also congratulate family and friends, and especially, spouses of participants on this joyful occasion. NIPSS is our Nation’s foremost think tank. It is here over the years that major policy issues have been originated, debated or proffered.

By bringing together some of the brightest and best Nigerian minds from the armed and non-armed services, business, labour, and the professions to think through policy ideas and options, NIPSS affirms the eminently correct notion that our country is strong because of its tremendous human capital and the richer by its diversity, which leads me to the seminal presentation that this course made yesterday to the President and members of the Federal Executive Council on the crucial subject of “Funding Universal Healthcare Delivery in Nigeria”.

Your in-depth assessment of the issues and insightful recommendations deserve every commendation. Just as the President said yesterday, they certainly will go into thinking through our financing policy, but more importantly, they will form the pillars of our health policies. NIPSS must remain the go-to institution for thinking ahead for our Nation’s development.

Permit me then to say a few words about a phenomenon that we all accept will fundamentally determine the future of our nation and indeed our world, that is the technology revolution, described, I think, accurately as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. To quote Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, “The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third; the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres.”

The speed and scope of this Fourth Revolution clearly outstrips all previous revolutions put together, the frequency and speed of breakthroughs is mind boggling and the disruption to every aspect of human existence - from healthcare to education, business, agriculture, the professions, entertainment, the arts, security, warfare, sports - is as varied as it is profound. For example, take the smartphone that we all carry, it has 100 times more computing power than the Apollo aircraft that landed men on the moon in 1969. The average smartphone has the capacity to store and access more information than is available in most standard libraries. The phone, through various platforms, connects the user to millions of other phone users all over the world, creating enormous market possibilities. And these possibilities, observes Schwab, “will be multiplied by emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing.”

There is no question that practically minute by minute every aspect of life is being transformed by technology. There is a need to constantly interrogate our current position in the technology story. There is a need to determine what we need to do to leverage on technology to leapfrog in the development journey.

So, let’s take data as an example. There is no doubt that data, big data, which is the aggregation of information from and by various sources and its use in predicting consumer behaviour, or the present and future needs of communities is crucial. Technology is crucial to the collection and the optimized use of data.

For us as government, we recognise the potential benefits to government from the capacity for better forecasting, to greater accuracy with budgetary planning, enhanced security by overcoming the challenges of anonymity and, especially for citizen empowerment through the ability to be able to bring more of the excluded populace into an inclusive economic participation through digital identification of each and every citizen.

This explains the Federal Government’s commitment to the digital registration of all citizens and legal residents, which, in turn, will be linked to the civil registration of birth and death.

In 2015, we began to harmonize existing databases of government bodies. So far, the harmonization process has increased the records of Nigerians in the central identity database from 7 million to more than 37 million. We are adopting an approach similar to the Indian Aadhaar model, aiming to provide all Nigerians with a unique identity by leveraging the existing enrolment facilities of Government Agencies such as the Immigration and the Federal Road Safety Commission, INEC, CBN (through BVN registration) and enforcing this enrolment of Nigerians for the National Identification Number (NIN) so that we have accurate and up-to-date information on our citizens.



But the more exciting news is the use of technology for more effective private sector financing of agriculture. For example, Farmcrowdy and Thrive Agric are digital agriculture portals that crowdsource funding for farms across Nigeria. So, they pool together money from multiple investors to establish farms and hire smallholder farmers. They then pay the investors dividends from the harvests from these farms.

It is evident that our rapidly increasing population and the advent of the fourth industrial revolution has posed several different challenges, but it is clear also that those challenges can be resolved, and we can do all manner of things using technology.

The educational challenge before us is one. It is obvious from the new curriculum we are developing, the STEAM education in Nigeria - Science, Technology, Engineering Arts and Maths, technology is going to enable us to benefit maximally from technology and have now identified early stage investment in primary and secondary schools all the way to tertiary education as key to achieving Nigeria’s economic aspiration of becoming a knowledge-driven economy. We are poised to do some incredible things.

One thing that we must bear in mind, which is my challenge to NIPSS; the problem of Nigeria has never been a shortage of ideas, there is no policy that has never been thought of, but the problem has always been implementation.

In my respectful view, NIPSS must graduate from a “think-tank” to “do-tank”, and this is the case. We are at a point in our country where policy is not the issue, but the rigour and discipline that is required to implement is what is needed.

I want to urge NIPSS, that our subsequent studies must be based on the need to attain some level of understanding of how to implement and get things done. Once we are able to do that, we are on our way.

Let me congratulate all our participants for the very excellent performance, and also congratulate the new Director-General of the Institute, who has already shown that a lot more is going to happen here in NIPSS, as well as the directing staff for the excellent work they are doing.

I say to the family and friends, congratulations, well done and God bless you.

Laolu Akande
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Publicity
Office of the Vice President
24th November, 2019

NIPSS over to you. The VP has spoken the clear and simple truth.

Osinbajo has spoken the right truth

That's quite a challenge to NIPSS from the VP.

This is nothing but the truth and the VP Osinbajo has said it all so is left for NIPSS graduands to take it into the consideration

I agree totally with the VP. We should be disciplined as for policies, we don't need newer ones but to implement the existing ones and abide by them.