The National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO) on Friday, January 10, 2025 received a presentation on modalities for the smooth execution of two of its new programmes; the Nigeria Academy for Cultural Studies (NACUS) and Cultural Orientational Retreat Programme (CORP).
This development was confirmed in a press release by Caleb Nor, the Agency’s Media Assistant.
Executive Secretary of NICO, Otunba Biodun Ajiboye while receiving the developed content in the form of a syllabus, said the decision to start up training and retreats for policy makers and lawmakers is an important part of the Institute’s mandate that has never been looked into before.
He disclosed that in the history of Nigeria, there has been no concerted effort or attempt to gather lawmakers to be oriented on cultural essentialities.
His words “With respect to our training and capacity building mandate, we want to start up with some new projects, particularly some kind of training and retreats for our policy makers and law makers. With respect to NACUS, we are actually supposed to be very huge in capacity building because that is basically what our footing is supposed to be”, he said.
In his presentation titled “Repositioning NICO Flagship Programmes”, the Director, Institute of Strategic and Development Communication at the Nasarawa State University, Keffi (NSUK), Professor Emmanuel Daudaura said despite the provisions of the enabling act for the Institute to serve as a focus for orientation in cultural matters for Nigerian Policy Makers, NICO has not been able to ‘catch them at the top’.
According to him, NICO’s mandate as contained in its enabling act is cross-cutting and very strategic such that collaboration with relevant agencies is highly required for maximum impact.
“You need to ride on people’s backs, particularly agencies that constitute your Governing Board as well as other relevant stakeholders to be able to promote, revive, develop and encourage Nigeria’s culture and history, conduct public enlightenment and innovative study as well as develop relevant curricular”.
“You have to come up with programmes that can support embassies to give a positive cultural image about Nigeria. In the area of research, no other agency is supposed to give statistics in the area of culture other than NICO. The Institute is supposed to have the best library on culture in Nigeria”.
“Your creativity is what will give you votes. The quality of your thoughts will bring you out. Learn about what others are doing and pick a few areas and you will get impact. So far as your ideas are justifying the promotion of culture, you cannot have it too much”.
While commending the Executive Secretary of NICO for the new initiatives, Prof. Dandaura expressed optimism that NICO will benefit immensely during his tenure, considering the capacity he has to tap into the political terrain under the Tinubu-led administration that has shown interest in value orientation.
Management staff present at the presentation were; Mr. Michael Ekoko, Director Research & Documentation; Mr. Ahmad Ismaila, Director Training School; Mr. Segun Adegbaju, Director, Orientation & Cultural Affairs; Mrs. Maria Okpuzor, Director, Special Duties; Head, Admin & Human Resources, Alhaji Ndaman; Head, Finance & Accounts, Mrs. Doris Augustine and Mrs. Adetutu Muku, Head, Corporate Affairs Unit.
