Tag Archives: economy

issues

Reclaiming Journalism: Elevating Policy Over Political Drama

Taiwo Oyedele & Anthony Blinken. Images from AB Magazine and The New York Times

One of the greatest needs of human society today is to resist the temptation of letting politics overshadow the narratives of development. Unfortunately, this has become increasingly common, leading to the erosion of qualitative conversations about substantive issues. Add to this the high-speed consumption of information and the democratized media space, and we find ourselves caught in a spiral of ugly dialectics, yielding little more than sensationalized reportage with no progressive value.

More troubling, however, is how journalists, who are meant to shape public discourse by asking intelligent questions of those in power, often veer into the realms of mischief. They court political jesters who “must politic” instead of engaging meaningfully with policy experts. Even when they sit down with individuals who staff the critical nerves of public policy, their focus tends to remain firmly on politics, leaving policy discussions as an afterthought.

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issues

Public Policy and the critical factors of time, skills, resources, and people

Recently, I have been meditating on the general concepts of Time, Skills, Resources, and People and how they interplay to produce desired outcomes. Initially, these thoughts were rooted in private considerations—how best to manipulate these factors for beneficial results. But, as is often the case, my reflections wandered to a familiar domain: public policy.

Having invested the last 15 years of my life working in, studying, learning within, and partnering in the area of government affairs and public policy, I can’t help but view concepts through this lens. It’s second nature for me to contextualize almost anything within the framework of public policy, whether or not they are explicitly connected. Interestingly, these four factors—Time, Skills, Resources, and People—are implied in almost every aspect of policy, yet they are rarely purposefully factored in during the pursuit of policy goals.

At a fundamental level, I believe exploring these four factors individually and applying them to public policy will be incredibly useful for anyone in this field—whether you work directly in public policy, study it academically, or intersect with it in a cross-functional capacity.

Also, since recent research suggests that the adult attention span now averages 8.25 seconds, I’ll present this exploration as a four-part series. My hope is that this structure will not only respect your time but also encourage deeper thought and engagement with each concept.

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issues

THE TRUE POWER OF THE INTERNET

internet-business-ideasI was quite eager when the opportunity came to relocate to Lagos from Calabar after my secondary education. Despite opposition from some peudo-motherly quarters, I made the exciting trip by road to Lagos (with a bottle of non-alcoholic wine to celebrate). This threw me into a whole new circle of activities and contacts with new people, although my grandma was always there to stabilize my emotions. She was the reason I moved anyway.

Months later in 1994, I was invited to a Vacation Bible School, at the end of which I made quite a few friends and collected several addresses and phone numbers. Before now, I had only posted letters a few times in my whole life; a couple letters to my dad in Lagos, and one or two to my uncle in the United States. I was used to telephone conversations, which were far between in any case. I remember our NITEL phone number then was 087-222889. My brother and I used to randomly choose numbers from the telephone directory and prank calls, until the day my mum screamed at the phone bills.

In Lagos however, grandma had no NITEL telephone. My only options were to write letters to my new friends, or walk from Campbell Street down to NITEL tower at Marina to use the pay phone, which meant I would have to gather enough 10 kobo coins to place my calls. These were precious moments. To hear a friend’s voice at the other end and spending minutes conversing inconsequentially, or hearing the post man opening the postbox outside the house, was most times the highlight of each day.

It’s hard to look back and relate to those days, when communication was carefully planned and labouriously thought through. Today, we carry about fancy gadgets that instantly perform multi-functions, and we rarely think about what we channel via these devices. The rise and pervasiveness of communication technology has so sharply widened the gulf between our immediate past and today that I can’t even imagine how I stayed in touch or fixed appointments with friends.
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