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Joko Okupe. |
Mindshift Advocacy for Development Initiative, Mr. Joko Okupe, has indicted Nigerian political parties for lack of ideological direction. Mr. Okupe made this declaration in a media interaction held recently at the Mindshift corporate office in Ikeja, Lagos.
Fielding questions from
the press the Mindshift Convener argues that none of the parties in Nigeria
contending and jostling for political power come 2023 is driven on the wheels
of ideology. What directs the life and operations of a political party in a
democracy, he said, is ideology. Ideology is the bulwark of the party’s
culture. It stands tall as the oil or blood that runs the engine of the party
and directs the actions of both the party officials and the membership.
According to Mr. Okupe, “Ideology consists of the common beliefs, values, and norms of the party directed at defining the kind of society a party plans to build. It comes from a common vision designed by the party as a roadmap to the society in view. Ideology forms the operating framework from where the political parties draw their inspirations and strategies which are encapsulated into manifestoes and agendas and subsequently communicated to the public through their campaign communications. But can we say the parties have any ideological direction? How, for instance, can you distinguish APC from PDP. Because the parties lack ideology, so there are no distinctions in their manifestoes. Every party appears to be saying the same thing about: building infrastructure, providing youth employment, providing good health care and good education. But we know it is the same thing they have been saying since 1999”.
Speaking further about
the Nigerian state and the type of leader Nigerians will expect come 2023 he
said, “There is no political party in Nigeria today you can say is a shining
example of what a political party should be. They all lack ideology. We are in a
Nigerian state variously described by political scientists as predatory,
prebendal, parasitic, patrimonial, neo-patrimonial, crony, kleptocratic, venal,
greedy, etc., that has created a crop of leaders who in themselves are selfish
and do not understand their own historical mission. Under this situation he
posited that we need a certain kind of leader. “We need a leader who is
sufficiently knowledgeable about the task ahead, and understands the context
behind Nigeria’s current historical trajectory, and would be ready to tackle it
headlong. We need a leader who is bold, brave, and courageous - who can break
the bounds of our stranglehold. A leader who understands the need to build
cohesion in a multiethnic and multicultural society. We need someone who can
confront orthodoxy and demolish our fault lines without diminishing our
disparate cultural and ethnic values. Such a leader needs to have a clarity of
his vision and how he wants to achieve it. I have not seen much of that in the
present crop of party contenders for the post of the president in 2023.”
Speaking on the solution to the Nigerian leadership problem, he said that Nigeria needs an upgrade in the reformulation of the state, the leadership class, and the citizens. The state is malfunctioning because of its hackneyed structure which tilts towards centrality and unitary-federalism. That is an aberration in a multiethnic and multicultural state. The leaders are selfish and visionless, attracted only by the fancy of their kleptomaniac tendencies. They do not understand the very purpose of life, and hence can hardly understand the essence of leadership. The followers are famished and lack the understanding of what liberal democracy is all about. In the most part, they lack enough knowledge to appreciate that they are actually the king while the politicians are their servants. They mistake the concept of leadership in a political setting with the concept of kingship in a traditional setting; and this makes them subservient to the politicians who should be accountable to them. This contradiction makes democracy difficult to practice in Nigeria. Under this scenario the politicians weaponize poverty as an instrument of domination against the citizens.
Following this, Mr. Okupe advocates for the mass enlightenment of the political class and the citizens. For him, both the political class and the citizens are under bondage, and need to be enlightened so that they can be liberated to develop the country, without which Nigeria remains undeveloped for eve. This is the reason he convened the Mindshift movement.
Explaining further, Mr.
Okupe said that, “Mindshift Advocacy Initiative for Development was created out
of the vision and understanding that our response to whatever situation we find
ourselves, either in our individual terrain, group terrain or national terrain,
is directly a result of how we think. The bible says, as a man thinks in his
heart so he is or becomes. So, if we understand that, we will all push for a
Mindshift or a change of how we think. That is what will actually move us away
from where we are now. So, the Mindshift movement is actually focused on
shifting mind-sets from negative to positive. It is a non-governmental and
non-partisan organization. It is focused on redirecting the mind-set of Nigerians
from the route of destruction in every area of lives. “If a man wants to be
destructive or disruptive, it is through the power of his mind.”
“There is so much
capacity in the power of the mind that the way and manner that the mind is
directed determines a man's outcome. Even for us, as a lesson, other nations of
the world are doing incredibly well is due to the different mind-sets that they
have. The average Nigerian mindset is anti-progress and anti-development. How
can we have progress and development without working on the re-orientations of
the mindset we have? Even when government decides to run a campaign
on changing attitudes, the success will depend on how people think.” We must
have that clear understanding. That essentially is the mandate of the Mindshift
advocacy.
Joko Okupe who is a
brand management and marketing communications expert of about 35 years, and who
has consulted for many globally reckoned organisations, is set to bring that
knowledge and experience to the front burner in the management of the Mindshift
advocacy, with the sole aim of galvanizing the Nigerian people to a new way of
thinking and reasoning that will lift this country from one milestone of
development to a higher milestone of development.
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