The founding Executive Director, African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development (Centre LSD), Dr. Otive Igbuzor, has urged Nigerians to encourage their wards to study areas of ideas that would benefit the country at large in their education pursuits.
He gave the advice during the ‘Annual Otivism Lecture’, to mark his 61st birthday celebration with the theme: ‘Otivism and Ideology; Addressing Contemporary Nigeria Challenges’, on Thursday, in Abuja.
According to him, the objective behind the initiative is to portray an ideology that can lead to the improvement of the people especially the poor.
“Ideas rules the society. Part of the problems we have is having resources but lack the ideas or initiative to build on them. We must look for ideas to rule Nigeria by looking for people with the ideas, adopt and use the ideas. And for those who want to destroy the country who must use ideas to destroy them.
“Our focus isn’t the government but people. If the people buy the ideas, then we will have a kind of convent we want for Nigeria. We are well over 200 million but only 8 million voted the presidents into power because if the people imbibe and know the accurate ideas to use, they will vote and the ideas will flourish,” Igbuzor said.
He said that, the problem Nigeria has as a country, is the lack of good ideas because Nigeria is known to have good and enormous resources but yet to use the good quality ideas to translate this resources, to improve the development of this nation and condition of the living of the people.
He said, “The ideas being discussed today is useful for the development of Nigeria, i.e. provision of health services, education, dealing with climate change conservation and environmental protection, dealing with agriculture, youth empowerments, gender equality and social inclusion.”
Delivering the keynote at the event, a lecturer with Base University, Dr Iroro Stephen Izu, who also authored the 173-page Otivism: The Ideas and Philosophical Reflections of Dr Otive Igbuzor, said that ‘Otivism’, is an idea that teaches on different aspects of society, whether in the era of environment, political power or unionism among others.
“The bottom line is that he tries to advocate the human side of power for the good of humanity. It is an ideology not just abstracts but concrete, i.e. it can be used as a tool for positive change in the society,” Izu said.
He said that, the Otivism shows that he is a man that has gone ahead of his time as provided in ideology which will bring about intergenerational equity and security and ensuring that it is built on justice, laws, sustainable development.
He said, “A concentration of not just the present but the future.”
Earlier, the wife of the celebrant Dr. Ejiro Otive Igbozor, described her husband as a motivator and supportive growth.
She said, “You can’t be around him and not grow because he is not threatened by his wife’s ambition nor growth. And that’s why we’ve grown together.”
Also, the Executive Director, Centre LSD Mr. Monday Osasah, said that the celebrant is a man on a mission. A true mentor, leader and father to all, worthy of emulation.
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