Your Excellency, Governor of Lagos State - Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Your Imperial Majesty, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, the United States Consul General - Claire Periangelo, Chair of the Carrington Fellowship Board of Trustees - Chief Kensington Adebutu and all present at this momentous gathering this morning.
Let us at once commend the United States Consulate, for facilitating the Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative.
We also commend Dr Arese Carrington, Co-Founder of the Carrington Fellowship Alumni Network, and widow of the distinguished Ambassador Carrington for inviting us to lend our voice to the cause of the Initiative.
The theme of this symposium, Rethinking Governance for Youth and Women’s Participation, reveals an acknowledgement of the invaluably strategic cause of bringing together Nigerian youth with exceptional vision, skills, and experience to design and implement projects that have a positive impact on Nigerian society.
The tragic under representation of both these crucial segments of society, magnifies the gap that exists in the effectiveness of government, which needs to be bridged. And as the theme suggests, the actions taken to bridge this gap must be “Beyond tokenism”
This ensures the socioeconomic fractures in our country are effectively mended, and no one is left to fall through the cracks by way of access to the formulation and benefits that come with inclusive and purposeful governance.
For, truly, you cannot decouple society to exclude representation of a part of the human creation, as this would go against natural justice and love for every member of whatever collective that is being governed- the very raison d’etre for governance, in the first place. Natural rulers, such as ourselves, are very important to ensuring that this justice is upheld.
The Youths are the ones that are best equipped with contemporary learning to mine and interpret codes to frame the algorithms, of the thought needed to create economic prosperity that arises from the emergent technologies and social shifts as human civilization inevitably progresses.
For our Women, the nurturing instincts ingrained in their peculiar essence are needed to tend young people imbued with the natural inclination to deploy creativity and innovation in the disciplined pursuit to improve and change potential into new value for all. Nurturing aside, women are natural incubators, not just of human seed, but also human ideas and concepts. There’s nothing you give a woman, that she does not vastly improve on and present a more refined version of what was given her. Ideas, governance, and responsibilities are no different.
This immediately draws the cohorts of youth and women from nice-to-have token appendages in the conversations about development in our national, and nay, continental contexts into the centre stage.
They become equally significant players as the dominantly male leaders who have had rein of the socioeconomic and political destinies.
Allow me some creative license as I present an analogy:
Father. Son. Holy Spirit - Men. Youth. Women
While each have their own strengths, and signature operating arenas, imagine the powerful & efficient equilibrium that results, when all three work together in tandem. When all three encourage and support each other, trusting enough to step down, step back, and allow the other rise and demonstrate their own capacity.
Human existence, largely dominated by men, has achieved quite a lot, especially considering we have used less than a 1/3 of the capacity of our brains. Imagine what we could achieve, in every aspect of life, if we lifted the restrictions and limitations, and operated at the full capacity of our brains. Women and youth are the remaining 2/3 that we must fully utilize for us to get there. And I dare say that if governance gets it right in reaching this perfectly divine equilibrium, society can only be the better for it.
This proposes that we reassess received positions and concepts to get results that beat the forces of a changed yet speedily accelerating world.
Therefore, the imperative of rethinking is aptly the only guarantee for individuals, institutions and society to be future-proofed against the concept of disruption; by definition, it is failure that arises to people and cultures when they continue to do the same things that made them successful in the past. The past is what it is. It is past. As a traditional ruler, one must be ready, to do away with the traditions that limit us than those that liberate us. We had said at our coronation, that we are not here to refill a role, but to redefine and recreate one.
But before I move away from the past, let me once again, present instances where significant progress was achieved when women were given a chance. As a monarch and a keen observer of history, as we say in Warri, this is a sweet one:
Could it be coincidence, that Britain experienced the golden age under Elizabeth I? Or that it experienced the industrial and Empire age under Victoria? Or that yet again, it has experienced so much dynamism? under Elizabeth II? In all three cases, instead of sabotaging, the restrictions that were set by the status quo of male domination, were dropped, and instead they supported and encouraged the monarch at the time, and thus, the results were unprecedented. More recently, the world is applauding the huge strides of development that Germany achieved under Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Appropriate governance today must empathize with the social graffiti that is being written and streaming through the voices of youth and women in their cries to be heard and understood. Understanding our identity, and the power of that identity, will go a long way in charting this course.
In Africa, no matter how much we try to look to the west or abroad generally as the case may be, for inspiration as regards political, social & economic development, the truth is, deep down, we are heavily inspired by our traditional institutions. And rightly so, they are key to our identity and our existence. Once these traditional institutions are able to go through their own internal evolution and the acceptance of opening up to the remaining 2/3, then it would be easier for all of society to fully embrace it as the new reality.
(It’s not unlike Moses growing up in Pharaoh’s royal household or Colin Kapernick growing up in his adopted household. These are beautiful external adornments that look and feel good. But until the full awakening and realignment comes from within, it will be superficial at best. Our traditional institutions are that “within”, and we must get it right in there, so we can better reflect that energy out to the world.
We ought to adopt the mindset that sees governance as a philosophical garden, characterized by creativity, innovation and experimentation - to transform entrepreneurial intention into success, which is the very cause that the Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative is championing.
Rethinking will deliver all the support - mentorship, incubation, finance, the promotion that leverage the connection between creativity and innovation with governance as the critical path to seeing that Africa and her people are integrated into the mainstream of global significance and reckoning.
This is where a thriving, future-proofed, and sustainable African society lies.
The factory mindset that sees governance as a factory that churns out merely busy political activity will inevitably succumb to this garden mindset that we are talking about.
We appraise that the actualization of this thinking is the true legacy and guarantee that the dearest desire of Ambassador Walter Charles (and may I add) Omowale Carrington is achieved.
Time will not permit us to elaborate on the sentiment that earned the man who inspired all we are doing today, the distinction of being conferred with that name - Omowale, translating as “the son of our soil has come home”.
Today, Ambassador Walter Charles Omowale Carrington is a veritable ancestor in the African sense of those who sacrifice and offer their shoulders for future generations to stand on. And achieve.
Beyond his professional career, which he executed admirably well, Walter Carrington was a king of hearts, so much so that the man has earned the distinction of being a veritable real estate in two regards. One etched in the hearts of Nigerians as a brother who helped save our national governance from the precipice during his tour of duty and the other real estate on the very soil of Nigeria through the eminently deserved naming of Walter Carrington Crescent. This address hosts most of the embassies and chanceries in Lagos. Therefore, the conferment of this honour by a grateful Lagos State on behalf of an equally grateful country is commendable.
Today, by the inauguration of this symposium, the man and his purpose live on.
In this regard, we commend all the alumni of the Initiative and charge you all to appraise the deep significance of the thinking that will emanate from discussions today. Your Fellowship, as a platform, frames those shoulders that we mentioned.
Therefore, this gathering is mainly about you. It is the solution designed to support you to lead thought and action in your divinely assigned continent of birth and its unique race.
We give our blessings and prayer that you make the best of the opportunity, as we commend the American Consulate and Dr Arese Carrington for the excellent work again.
Thank you, and happy deliberations.
May God bless you.
Ògíam?` Atúwàtse III - The Olú of Warri
Lagos.
Thursday, 9 December 2021
Copyright: Fresh Angle International (www.freshangleng.com)
ISSN 2354 - 4104
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