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When the Chairman of the Guild, Mr. Gbenga Adefaye called to inform me of the decision to invite me to speak at this year's event, many thoughts raced through my mind. I knew that I could not decline the invitation from the Guild. I hold the Guild and Mr. Adefaye in very high esteem since our paths crossed when I took my first steps towards political office as a gubernatorial candidate. My mind was conjuring up the many possible reasons why I was the choice of the Guild remembering that I had been here before to speak about our media management.
While I was still agonizing about the possible reasons why the Guild chose me again, Mr. Adefaye transformed my temporary misery into a prolonged one when he broke the long silence on the phone and said to me:
"You made some observations the last time you spoke to us, we want you back to come and give us your assessment if there has been any progress". Then I knew that he had put me right in the middle of a rock and a very hard place.
I have since that day been agonizing about what to say. In an election season when one is often expected to be everybody's friend, was the Guild ready for an unfavourable verdict if that was the result of my assessment?
I reconciled myself with the impossibility of declining the invitation, and resolved to do only one thing; to present the assessment as I see it for two reasons; the first of which is that this is the only way I know, to say what I feel or say nothing at all; and secondly because I believe that the observations I made at my maiden presentation were relevant to improve the media practice and profession and our country's image and I believe that Mr. Adefaye and the Guild understood me in that sense and agreed that there was need for self appraisal and improvement. Ladies and gentlemen, you do me a great honour by inviting me, so here I am. My assessment will cover three broad areas; namely engagement with Government and public officers, offensive material to the public at large and reputational issues. In terms of engagement with public officials and Government, I like to start with my earlier suggestion that today's media albeit a direct or subsequent product of the media of colonial times, must necessarily change its DNA from the media of that period.
Whereas, in the colonial period, the media was confronted with changing an alien Government and largely European public officials whom it could not remove in a democratic manner, and later in the Military era the media had to deal with many military Governments, and Nigerian public officials under military rule, whom it could not also change by democratic means, the Government of today is neither military or alien, even if it has some military hangovers and still is not fully democratic as long as elections are still supposed to be do or die.
Essentially therefore, I think there is a strong case for a slight change of strategy which can produce better results, if the purpose of media engagement is the development of society.
I think the old "combative" DNA has become counter-productive in the sense that it has not got the public the result they expect in terms of Governance. I think that a constructive, challenging and sometimes persuasive and inspiring approach may bring on results.
I think that we have seen our Governments and our officials in a way that encourages us to highlight only their weakness without highlighting their strengths in sufficient measure.
Indeed, while I am not suggesting that no solution to problems are being offered by the media, I would venture to canvass that we should dwell more on offering solutions to problems we want our Government to pursue before condemnation.
Let me attempt to illustrate with an example.
Since I was elected and even before then, there was no debate that there was a lot of work to be done, if we must improve the quality of education. While there was unrestrained condemnation of Government and public officials, one article written by Yusuph Olaniyonu proffered a solution about how to attempt to solve the problem.
He argued sensibly that we should all go back to our schools, and put something back. That article prompted me to think, to challenge my colleagues, and this led to the enunciation of a State policy called "Adopt-a-School" by which individuals, corporate and NGOs could participate in a co-ordinated manner to rejuvenate school infrastructure.
This has provided for the first time a platform for school intervention and engagement by members of the society in addition to the traditional one of the religious missions.
This policy has become the forerunner of many other policies and reform initiatives such as the Eko Education Programme with the World Bank, free books, new desks and benches, teachers' training and motivation, voluntary clubs and many more that are leading to a gradual but sustained turn around in education delivery in Lagos State.
In 2007, 7% of our students passed the WAEC exam while the number went up to 10% in 2008, 18% in 2009 and 21% in 2010.
In its assessment report of 2010 on the Eko Project, the World Bank in its words rated the project performance as: "highly satisfactory given the high intensity of the project implementation and results".
This assessment was informed by its findings of "…very good results from the Lagos project student standardized tests in English, Maths and Science which improved dramatically in the recent end of year tests compared to the baseline assessments done at the beginning of last year".
The report concluded that "…the strong showing in the first year gives us hope that over the life of this project, we will see more dramatic improvements".
Very recently, it was the same Yusuph who in expressing concern about the lingering disruption in our State University wrote in a conciliatory manner that the lecturers and the Government must yield ground to find a solution in the interest of the students.
Some other commentators have simply taken sides with either Government or the Unions in a manner which did not help to improve discussions.
I assure you that as a head of Government, I did not need any telling that conciliation and negotiation was the way out, and although I had held three meetings with the Unions in the committed pursuit of an amicable and sustainable solution, Yusuph's article added value in the sense that, it enforced my belief that I was doing the right thing.
I convened another meeting on the 31st December 2010, the very last day of the year and this was the meeting that led to the end of that strike. There could be many more examples, but I believe these two illustrate the point about the strategy of engagement, and the value of offering solutions to problems.
I only would wish to conclude this point by reinforcing the fact that Government is an artificial legal entity. Its efficacy depends on human beings who are vulnerable just like all of you. Government officials are actors on the stage of life.
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