By Tolu Meduna
Since October 2023, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) has experienced a revival under the leadership of Mallam Lanre Issa Onilu. Since his appointment, Mallam Lanre has made significant strides in repositioning the Agency. His accomplishments include developing “The Explainer” e-newsletter, launching “The Mobiliser App,” and consistently educating both staff and the public about the National Values Charter at every opportunity, emphasising self-reflection, understanding how our attitudes shape the collective opinion of who we are as Nigerians. He has also re-engineered NOA’s programmes and partnerships, and re-energized the staff at both state and local government levels.
Relentless in spreading the message of values he introduced the 7 for 7 National Values Charter. The National Values Charter serves as a social contract between the government and its citizens, outlining seven promises made by the government to the people and seven responsibilities that citizens have towards their country, holding all accountable on various levels.
As part of the national identity project, the National Values Charter defines who we are and what we stand for, guiding nation-building and with a collective effort. A true trait of a ‘Real Nigerian’ is the duty of care towards one another, promoting ethical conduct and fostering a sense of community.
At every given opportunity, he encourages Nigerians to keep hope alive. Demonstrating his deep understanding of the present situation in Nigeria, he used a compelling analogy at a social group meeting to create a vivid mental picture. He said:
“Everyone is feeling the heat. But as I tell people, we can go back to where we were before this government and continue with that life that we were living, which is living a lie, and they say that if lies travel for 20 years, the truth will catch up in one day. The truth was closing in on us, and what was the lie we had been living? We were all in a building that had a lot of cracks, and the successive caretakers were just doing some makeshift repairs, and the situation was getting bad, and we knew ultimately the building was going to collapse on our heads.
But because they didn’t want to be blamed, in the process of doing a complete rehabilitation of the building, it would bring hardships to the tenants, they didn’t want to be blamed for it, and then they began to pass, kick the ball to the next person. But President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for some of us who supported him, what we saw in him included his courage to be able to take hard decisions. So he decided that we can no longer continue to live a lie. We must face the truth. The truth is this building will collapse. So first and foremost, we must all move out of that building so that we can bring it down and lay a solid foundation. But during the process of doing this, rain will fall on us, sun will beat us, and then we begin to say, why did you chase us out of the house? Invariably, we were asked to allow the building to collapse on us. So the choices are obvious.
So now we are out in the rain and in the sun. I guess what we need to do is to encourage the government to be fast in rebuilding, rather than saying, why did you even ask us not to die inside that building? There’s a difference between the two. And the opposition and those who don’t mean well are taking advantage of the situation to promote disharmony, hiding under this particular situation that they know that when they were there, they ought to have done but they refused to do.”
Mallam Lanre Issa Onilu is dedicated to upholding the national values of Nigeria.
Today, the 10th of July, we celebrate a man of great value as he reaches another milestone. Hearty cheers to a nation builder. Happy birthday to Mallam Lanre Issa Onilu, Director General of the National Orientation Agency.
*Tolu Meduna is public engagement officer at National Orientation Agency (NOA), office of the director general