Across motor parks, food joints and barber shops, Nigerians have postulated solutions to their national frictions. Yes, we know how to fix electricity, provide potable water, redesign schools, and upgrade our healthcare systems. Yet, come back next week, next month, and new year, you will be surprised -. nothing has happened. In this video, I explain why that is the issue, and how that can be fixed. Of course the news that Nigeria has engaged MIT, the celebrated American university, to teach top Federal Civil Service workers “Radical Innovation” adds new variables in the equation.
I hope this training is done in federal secretariat, and not in any of the top Abuja hotels. It would be magical for MIT experts to “experience” what happens when there is no electricity as workers pick their Bibles, Qurans and Facebook, waiting for 4 pm to save them from the bondage!
LBS, ABU, UNN, UI, FUTO, UDUS, UNICAL, etc – you must update your playbook. MIT just picked some millions one of you could have earned! We might have stopped importing milk – but that may not be the real battle in Nigeria. This nation needs to look inwards and give its institutions opportunities.
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There were indications that the federal government has partnered with experts from a United States prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to train top Federal Civil Service workers on “Radical Innovation.”
[…]
She [Acting Head of the Civil Service of the Federation Dr. Folasade Yemi-Esan] said: “The urgent need to embrace innovation in the public sector can further be oppreciated when one puts in retrospect the rapid pace with which innovative technologies are being proliferated and deployed in private sector administration and which most organizations have leveraged to enhance their efficiency, transparency, performances and fortunes.
[…]
He [Prof. Bhaskar Pant, Executive Director, Professional Education at MIT] said: “We were invited by Office of Civil Service of the Federation and some individuals who had participated in our trainings and understand the trainings are relevant to Nigerian situation and society.
“We have trained a lot of private sectors around the world, and we realize that if governments want to be much more innovative, so we want to participate and help Nigeria bring innovative practices to public service.”
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I heard ‘Radical Innovation’ and ‘top Federal Civil Service workers’, what’s the average age of people in this category? From there you can find out those who will sleep through the training, and those who won’t even make sense of what the trainer is saying…
I don’t want to go into the purpose of the proposed training and its probable outcome, including the learning capabilities of the potential attendees; let me not look for trouble today.
The only thing I will say is that when we are done with what we want to do in the education space, the likes of MIT and Harvard will no longer get such opportunities here; we are coming!
Nigeria can only work when we begin to look inwards. We need to have confidence in our systems to advance!
West Africa Business School is capable of providing same kind of training with local content case studies.