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The need to articulate a framework for value orientation and leadership development in the Niger Delta cannot be overemphasized. For decades, the problems of the Delta have been the subject of discussion both at national and global levels. Governments, international agencies, statesmen, academics and different interest groups have all devoted considerable time and energy to grappling with these challenges. Commissions and Panels have been set up, wars have been fought in the creeks, numerous suggestions have been made and billions of development dollars have been channelled into the region, yet the indicators of development remain at abysmal levels.
What is however exceedingly astonishing is the fact that in all our planning, the moral dimension is either ignored or carefully glossed over. One of the greatest challenges faced in the Niger Delta today – underlying insecurity, unemployment or violence – is
the loss of ethical values, faith, self-esteem and sense of community. The seeming poverty of the region is not necessarily due to the absence of resources. On the contrary, it is due to the poverty of the mind – a mindset that has been brutalized by decades of unfruitful and traumatic engagements with an insular state apparatus and unresponsive oil firms. This is a mindset that increasingly seeks appeasement and ‘settlement’ – a mindset that suffers from a dangerous sense of entitlement and dependency, and has very little motivation towards creativity.
The aim of the policy recommendations is to highlight the moral foundations of the Niger Delta problematic and to articulate a framework for the development of ethical orientation and leadership development in the region. . Not too long after President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in, at the combined 27th and 28th convocation ceremony of the University of Jos the President called on universities in the country to introduce ethics and leadership courses in their curriculum. This is a clear signal that we are in a dispensation where ethics and values will be given prominence in our development planning.
Download the paper below.
