Nigeria’s abandonment of Awolowo’s policies, bane of real development ― NIPR boss

President, Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, Dr Rotimi Oladele, has decried that the country had failed to experience real development owing to ephemeral attention given to the policies, vision, education, processes advanced by Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

This is just as he decried that the nation had continued to pay lip service to the “Change begins with me” campaign of the federal government, calling for adequate marketing of government’s policies and the need for Nigerians to assume the responsibility of building the county.

Oladele gave these assertions on Tuesday when he led other executive members of the NIPR to Tribune House, Ibadan, on Tuesday, for a courtesy visit.

He also called for the redesigning of the nation’s education curriculum, infrastructure and the boosting of local production.

“We have abandoned originality and are always after ephemerals, that is, things that are transient. The whole country today is scratching on the surface the philosophy, policies, discipline, vision, processes and education of Awolowo.”

“It is any government or society gets any of this right that we can talk about development. Development is not about how much money you have. Development is about how many ideas you see through. One of the greatest failures of the country since independence is lack of policy marketing. Once you don’t market your policy, the policy is not understood.”

“It is only Nigerians that can build Nigeria. When education cannot feed the country, it means school has not passed through anybody in the last 30 years. We need to redesign our education curriculum and infrastructure. It will be better to have 100 technical colleges and 10 grammar schools not 100 grammar schools and 10 technical colleges. So many have been lost in terms of our culture and education.”

His visit also saw the decoration of Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, Nigerian Tribune, Mr Edward Dickson as Member, Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.

Dickson in his remarks assured that the management was committed to propagating and ensuring that the Awolowo’s vision remained alive.

He prayed that leaders of the nation key into the Awolowo vision and work at the desired change in the country.

Dickson urged the NIPR to continue to work to replenish and equip the average PR person to live up to professional expectations in whatever capacity they are engaged.

He further assured that the Nigerian Tribune continued to expand its frontiers of business to meet stakeholders’ expectations and market demands.