FG to Hold National Conversation on Value Reorientation

Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja

The federal government said it will convene a national conversation on value reorientation to remind Nigerians of the strategic direction that the country should inch towards.

Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris made the disclosure during a working visit to the National Orientation Agency (NOA) as part of his familiarization visits to some of the agencies and parastatals under his supervision.

The minister met the DG NOA, Dr Garba Abari and other directors of the agency during the visit where Abari lamented that country was bedeviled by lack of respect for constituted authorities, cultism, banditry, fraud, low appreciation for national cohesion among other vices.

He said one of the reasons why President Bola Tinubu renamed the ministry as Ministry of Information and National Orientation was to make national reorientation to be the core of his Renewed Hope Agenda.

The minister described NOA as very important to the country’s national rebirth and a very powerful agency that served as custodians to major national symbols that reflected Nigeria’s collective existence.

He thanked Abari for ensuring that those values that the country should have a nation were being preserved for the benefit of all so that they can be passed to the younger ones.

“Without return to the core values that we are known for, Nigeria is not likely to go forward. Part of the reasons why we see that our nation is stunting in so many aspects is because of the gradual erosion of the values that our founding fathers left for us. And until, and unless we go back to those values, it will be very difficult for us to move forward as a nation,” Idris said.

The minister decried the attitude of Nigerians to the national flag, which is a powerful symbol of their collective existence, togetherness and unity as a country.

“Even government offices that are supposed to have this flag are not having it at all or are just hanging it because someone thinks it is a piece of cloth that you just hang somewhere. If you go offices in other countries, there is no way you will not see the symbol of their existence. Why is our own different? The only time you see people holding the flag is when we are having a football match and people are wearing national colours. I think we should return to those old values. It is important for Nigeria to go back to the old days and remember the symbol that helped to keep our country together and remind us of the direction that this country should move towards,” Idris said.