INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND THE NEED FOR N.O.A.
By Bola Bakare
As a collective, nationals of a given geographical space seek, strive and work for the development of their country. Every citizen in the social ladder is a very important segment in the strides being made to forge the proverbial Eldorado.
This for the collective corporate wellbeing of nation state is a desire that can be found in virtually all the nation states across the world and Nigeria cannot in anyway be an exception in the sense that it is a thriving democratic nation notwithstanding the fact that its journey towards nationhood is dogged by thorny paths.
As a nascent democracy, it is the world’s seventh largest democracy and by the projection of the various relevant local and international agencies, Nigeria’s population is put at a little over 200 million people hence the need for proactive inventiveness in the management of its affairs.
Consciously governance and its various structures ordinarily ought to be designed to be function and responsible to the needs and yearnings of its people. Ideally, the government ought to devise a workable information dissemination mechanism not only as a veritable tool for informing the led but also for mass mobilization of its teeming citizenry for developmental efforts.
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Sadly though, a careful appraisal of the prevailing circumstances in the country will no doubt reveal that the information management function and mechanism has badly broken down prompting a deficit of trust from the people towards their leaders.
It has also hampered efforts of the governments at all tiers to deliver the goods to the people owing to noticeable the gulf that currently exists between the leaders and the led, the government and the governed. Just as with any relationship between parties, communications remain key in consensus forging. Where there exists a deficit, development becomes hugely difficult to attain.
As an entity and institution, one is inclined to aver that information gathering in the nation’s officialdom has been terribly disjointed and where conscious efforts exists such efforts remains inadequate and not properly pushed out in a manner that would ensure that Nigerians are in sync with their leaders in terms of policies and programmes being carried out for societal good.
The overall impact of this has become so manifest especially in the area of security of lives and property where government and its numerous agencies are failing woefully to generate and share information codified as intelligence with a view to nip the growing insecurity in the country in the bud.
It has become very common to obtain reports of needless squabbles amongst, for instance, various security agencies over intelligence generation to curb insecurity in the country as these agencies are most times involved in contests for turfs and showmanship to the detriment of Nigerians.
Perhaps, as a nation, we need to draw inspiration from a much developed and endowed nation such as the United States of America that thrives so well using findings and reports from information and intelligence gathering.
The problem of information mismanagement is not limited to the security agencies just as it exists within the other MDAs, which are the engine room of the government. There is no information that emanates from the officialdom that won’t make Nigerians ask questions without accompanying answers.
All the various MDAs making up the government have personnel that should be responsible for information dissemination. Such civil servants when they come up with press releases never make any meaningful impact as the information provided is buried in the newspapers.
They (the information passed across) make little or no impact considering the fact that many Nigerians cannot afford to buy newspapers. A vast majority also do not have access to social media.
To bridge this gap however, it is my considered opinion that government must and should make efforts to rework and fund the operations of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) with a view to making it impactful as with its precursor organization, the Mass Mobilization for Self Reliance, Zero Justice, and Economic Recovery (MAMSER).
The NOA as an agency would do more as a clearing house for propagating government’s policies and programmes being the needed tool for sensitizing the people to activities of government while at the same time driving the Nigerians to buy-in into the programmes and policies.
Taking a retrospective look, it was during the time of MAMSER that Nigerians knew what the various agencies of government were doing but the creation of NOA has seen reduction in the information flow to the people.
To me, what the personnel in the press units of the MDAs fail to do, when properly primed, programmed and funded, the NOA as a specialized agency will do better considering the records of MAMSER as an agency that was established during the military era.
Let us look at the current topical issues in the country for you to further appreciate the problem created by the lack of proper information dissemination.
My take is that we cannot afford to have a vacuum in information dissemination but in our case we have so far regressed from having a vacuum to chasm, which can still be corrected if we do the needful as a nation.
stateofthenation.bola@gmail.com
