- By Dawud Ahmed in Lokoja.
A Chief lecturer at the Kogi State Polytechnic,Lokoja,Dr.Jeol Akowe says stopping the “Japa” syndrome in Nigeria is achievable if motivation of workers and other anomalies in public service are seriously addressed.
This is, he said, became necessary to guarantee the commitment of the workforce and ensure sustained performance attitude of the workers.
He added that the recommendations would go along way in curbing the rate at which many Nigerians jet out of the country to other parts of the world in search of greener pastures.
He stated this on Thursday at the permanent site of the polytechnic when he delivered the institution’s First Chief Lecturer Inaugural Lecture with the topic,”Manpower Resourcing And Productivity Management In The Public Sector:The Cacophony Of Paradox”.
Dr.Akowe, a public administration expert, with academic background in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and University of Nigeria,Nsukka,said that exceptional contribution in the work place should also be recognized,l for accelerated advancement to stir similar feats among other employees.
“Workers’ salaries and fringe benefits should be taken very seriously to enable the employees effectively deploy their performance attitudes at their duty posts,” he further urged.
He called for regular staff auditing among the respective Ministries, Department and Agencies,MDAs, compelled through a special Due Process Protocol to declare their vacancies and make their recruitments open,no matter the level of the vacancies involved.
The academic also advised that staff movements (turn over) should be sufficiently monitored and controlled by effective Personnel and Pay-Roll Information System (PPIS) with a highly centralized password.
Dr.Akowe called on mass media,civil society and Human Rights agencies to take special interest in the areas of recruitment, from the perspectives of fundamental human rights and freedoms, so as to expand process auditing of the resourcing agencies.
“Sanction against any abuse of recruitment procedure should be certain,swift and severe to serve as a deterrent to potential offenders,” the inaugural lecturer stressed.
He expressed optimism that if the socio-political environments consider themselves as crucial partners (rather than agents of interferences), there would be free flow of services by the respective public service institutions in the country.
The Chief lecture, who gave an x-ray of public service in Nigeria, and noted that it is bedeviled with corruption, adding that more needed to be done to sanitize it to make its performance much more desirable.
Labour analysts, viewing labour trend in Nigeria with keen interest, describe a trend in Nigeria where young people, disillusioned with the economic and social conditions in the country, decide to emigrate to other countries, particularly to Western nations, in search of better opportunities.
According to them, the term “japa” comes from a Nigerian slang that means “to flee” or “to escape” but a reflectionof the desire of many Nigerians to leave their homeland in pursuit of a better life elsewhere.
In his opening remarks,the Reactor of the Polytechnic,Dr. Salisu Ogbo Usman, described the occasion as the dawn of yet another significant era in the polytechnic and another “first”since he assumed the mantle of the leadership of the 31-year-old institution.
Usman disclosed that his administration had so far recorded successful holding of the 4th combined convocation ceremonies of the polytechnic after ten years that such event took place in the institution.
According to him, his management had also recorded first in the areas of efficient infrastructural provision, administrative revolution, academic advancement, moral rebirth, security architecture among others, geared towards restoring the polytechnic to institutional prominence amon others.
The Rector congratulated the inaugural lecturer for accepting to take the lead in the epoch-making lecture.
He challenged other highly respected chief lecturers of the polytechnic to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the maiden event to strengthen the positive narratives of the institution through frequent presentation of inaugural lectures.
Our correspondent reports that members of the academic community in the state, the military, police, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, the traditional institution, students of the Polytechnic, journalists and other members of the society attended the occasion.