Osinbajo Challenges Elites On Innovations To Better Majority Nigerians

By Olayemi Esan

Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo has called on Nigerian elites to think, develop and implement ideas that will create opportunities for majority of the people.

Osinbajo made this known in Abuja on Thursday while delivering a keynote address on “National and Regional Insecurity: The Role of Political and Non-Political Actors in Stabilisation and Consensus Building” at the 2020 Leadership Conference and Awards.

In a statement on Friday by Laolu Akande, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity in the Office of the VP, the Vice President said the task before the nation is that of renewing the social contract, creating more inclusive institutions, growing the economy, and generating opportunities for the population.

 "Those of us in this conference are by virtue of our pedigree and status, members of a privileged minority. The contrast between our exceptional circumstances and the material conditions of the majority of our compatriots imposes a moral obligation on us to work for the common good, towards a society that works for all by spreading the circle of opportunity,” the VP said.

Osinbajo said the task cannot be accomplished in a climate of sociopolitical instability and no project of social renewal and transformation can succeed without the involvement and indeed the leadership of elites.

 "The highest office and duty of the elite is sacrifice, sacrifice, and more sacrifice. It means that we must be prepared to tell our constituencies the truth even if it hurts our political fortunes or our popularity. We must be able to say to the young men and women who say secession is the only way or that we should break up into little nations that that is the way of extinction, not development,” he explained.

Osinbajo charged religious leaders to be able to tell their adherents that people of other religions are not their enemies, but are brothers and sisters, and that they must not allow those who will benefit by division and strife to tell them differently.  

We the elites have received much from Nigeria; we are disproportionately beneficiaries of opportunities, gifts, resources, advantages, relationships and other assets that are only possible because we are Nigerians. It is only right that we adopt a sensibility that guides us in giving back to this country that has empowered us so much and to invest in it in ways that offer returns broader than just our own profit.  

He charged the elites to broaden its horizons beyond their specific disciplines and sectors in times of crises. “Accordingly, business leaders understand that it is not enough to focus on making profits, businesses need a healthy society within which to operate and make profits. This is why there are now such concepts as corporate social responsibility and good corporate citizenship. It is not at all paradoxical that some of the biggest charities in the world were founded by the greatest capitalists.”

He added; "Legal practitioners understand that the imperative of transformative leadership in the legal sector today calls for the Bar and the Bench to insist on the integrity of our system of justice, to insist on speed in the dispensation of cases and to call out anyone who compromises the system.”

On the media, the VP opined that its elite must recognise that they have a responsibility to exercise discernment in the deployment of their platforms and must reflect upon whether they are amplifying the most insensate, intemperate and incendiary voices in our midst while marginalising voices of reason.

He also noted that the political elite must accept, through policies and actions that the purpose of power must be to better the lives of those they serve and give the young ones great hope for the future.

"Once we put on the lens of social responsibility, different and higher imperatives come into play. This is what transformational elitism looks like.

"Osinbajo on security said the insurgency in the Northeast, kidnappings and terrorist acts in the Northwest and threats of secession in the Southeast and Southwest.

"In considering the theme of this event, it is worth noting that often when we explore the concepts of national and regional security, there is a tendency to anchor the discourse around the machinations and intrigues of externally-generated vulnerabilities, external adversaries.  

"So, we argue that the problem of State fragility in Africa is on account of the colonial origins of her nation-states, the notion that Nigeria is a hastily and arbitrarily cobbled together patchwork of mutually alienated kingdoms and as a result, has remained plagued by fundamental challenges rooted in its founding is popular, but not the whole truth.

"Indeed, it is my view that the colonial beginnings of African nation-states do not constitute the sort of immutable obstacle to nation-building that it is made out to be.  After all, colonialism was a historical global phenomenon that spawned nation-states everywhere across the world from Europe and Africa to Asia, North America, and South America. We have examples of many of such nation-states that are successful. Colonial origins are therefore not necessarily a predictor of national prosperity or state failure.

"In any case, there is a lot of scholarship and research that shows that our ethnic nations share a long history of trade, diplomacy, migration, and conflict - all of which ensured that by the time the colonialists arrived, we were not strangers to each other. And if we were not strangers to each other then, we are most certainly not strangers to each other now.  

"The truth therefore it seems to me is that the external reasons we cite as reasons for our problems cannot thrive without severe internal weaknesses in our society. The chief weakness is a human one - our elite, our political, economic, and religious elite", he said.  
Osinbajo added that, the second is Mediating Elite Competition and Conflict. In considering the role of political and non-political actors in stabilisation and consensus building, we must address a threat to peace and safety emanating from society itself. We are confronted by a pervasive culture of violence that manifests as two strains. The first is the nature of elite competition for more advantage and privilege that is generally prosecuted without considering the long-term health of society. In this context, we see a quest for power that is conducted in ways that are ruinous and destabilising.  

Osinbajo noted that, in times of crises, we learn and relearn lessons in solidarity and in the value of pulling together. The old rigid dichotomies between the State, the market and civil society no longer apply. We recognise that the path to the future will be paved by consolidating the interdependence of these sectors. This is why we need a new ethic of collaboration that brings together elements from the public sector, communities, corporations, voluntary associations and faith groups to jointly work on solutions that we can scale up from the local to the national space. The elite are integral to this process.

"Finally, in times of adversity, societies buffeted by uncertainty and anxiety are tempted to drift towards voices that appeal to our darker impulses, to those that traffic in fear, despair and division. Elites such as those gathered here today must counter such voices by inspiring faith, creative optimism and solidarity" he said.