Anambra State Governor-elect, Prof Soludo, goes Option A4 as he searches for human capital to build his state: a talent database to help him pick qualified people for critical positions in the state. Put your name and skills, and you get called if you’re qualified, godfather or not.
Option A4 was one of the approaches arrived at, in the conduct of party primaries for 1993 Presidential election. It is a multilevel strategy for the emergence of party flag bearers, in which aspirants from a party slug it out at the ward level, before proceeding to compete with other wards’ winners at the local government level, while winners at this level compete at state level, till the process reached the federal level.
That is a nice playbook which mirrored how IBB pushed the nomination of presidential contenders from ward to LGA to state and to the federal levels. It would be a great experiment in Anambra state in a nation where we do not compete at the center but at the tribal/ethnic/religious/add more domains.
Yes, what happens if most of the top talented people come from one senatorial zone? Can Prof Soludo handle that? We will see the outcome of this experiment in a nation where the best graduating student is denied an automatic graduate assistantship lecturer job because of tribe, even as the school gives the same to the 5th best because he has the right name.
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We will be watching…and if he gets it and it scales, this could be the beginning of a new nation. As I have written, the day I went to FUTO and told Prof SOE Ogbogu that I would reject the automatic job the university offered me, it was a moment.
But imagine if because of my tribe, lack of godfather (but too much GOD of course), etc, FUTO did not make that available to me. Of course, I will not be happy. That I declined it because the same man had accepted an offer for me 9 months before graduation (no interview; he said “you do not need to interview my best”) even as he still provided what the tradition offered was superb.
Those who came after me knew that if you excel, a big reward awaits -and everyone then will compete to be the best. But Nigeria has killed that tradition with nepotism, corruption, etc.
Let’s get back to the old Nigeria of excellence, equity and fairness. Well done Mazi Soludo
As stated in his manifesto and repeated during his campaigns, the Governor-elect of Anambra state Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo promised to give everyone (Anambarians) who has the requisite competencies, capabilities, and relevant valuable contributions to the good governance of Anambra state an opportunity to be actively part of his government. Just recently, the governor-elect seems to be fulfilling his promise towards the good people of Anambra state
He has set up a transition committee mandating them to ensure a seamless transition, among other things producing an #AnambrsStateTalentDataBank, which he will use as a tool for recruiting a talented team & volunteers who will serve Ndi Anambra in the course of his administration.
Therefore, to enable an accessible, open, credible, and competitive process, the governor-elect has approved the launch of an online system known as “Anambra Talent DataBank Expression Of Interest” to collect information on available competencies, experiences, and passion through a platform.
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We should turn Nigeria into a giant experiment laboratory, both at state and federal levels, so that any framework that delivers at scale, can be adopted in other places.
We have wasted so much time and resources on things that never worked, so it won’t be out of place to do things differently.
If we create a working system, those who do not have what it takes to deliver will simply resign, to save themselves from embarrassment.
Where have you seen an illiterate dragging a minutes book with the educated counterpart? But because of the warped systems we built and scaled, such misnomer is possible here.
Let’s see how Soludo’s experiment works out…