Utomi, Tanko, others canvass review of national values

Founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership, Prof. Pat Utomi, has called for a review of national values that would pave the way for the progress of the country.

Speaking, yesterday, during the formal launch of The New Tribe at a Global Village Square in Victoria Island, Lagos, the professor of Political Economics noted that Nigerians had talked enough, stressing that it was time for action, based on love of neighbours and country and a powerful sense that Nigeria would rise again.

He described The New Tribe, which he founded, “as a movement of Nigerians committed to personal integrity, inclusion and the dignity of all, work ethics and a spirit of service that enkindles the John F. Kennedy mantra of ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country; invokes the view that values shape human progress in seeking to bring talent, in a non-partisan action for impact engagement, to use to pull off a values re-orientation in the country so progress can be assured.” He noted that Nigeria was still crawling at 64, adding that it was a place of domicile for the biggest number of the absolute poor on the planet.

“This is why it is called the poverty capital of the world. Paradoxically, its people are 70 per cent of the black doctors in the U.S. and the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom will suffer crisis if you suddenly withdraw Nigerian doctors and nurses. I am told 10 per cent of the pharmacists in the State of Maryland are Nigerians. The pattern is the same in many other professional groups that Nigerians are emerging as among the most well-off nationality groups in North America. Quite a paradox.”

He lamented that even with the stellar performance of Nigerians in many fields, the narrative is of a country of scammers. Utomi also announced the creation 14 cohorts of engineering national rebirth by the group, which includes the Cohort for Rational Public Conversation of Reason over Negative Emotion, the Health is Wealth Cohort, Diaspora for Change Cohort, Election Reform Cohort, Peace Building Cohort, Constitution Reform Cohort, New Values Proselytisation Cohort, Cohort for Public Accountability, among others.

Speaking at the event, the National Coordinator of the Obidient Movement, Dr Yunusa Tanko, noted that Nigerians unanimously agreed that the problem of the country was rooted in leadership, stressing that the situation calls for in-depth research.

In his remarks, Soji Apampa of the Integrity Organisation, noted that Nigeria had lost traction with its values as a nation, stating that successive governments even from the military era had created different programmes to address that but failed.

According to him, at the core of the values is the need for Nigerians to do the right things, irrespective of age and tribe, to rebuild, reclaim and renew the nation.