Politics
By Nwamaka Chigbo
THE Institute for Leadership and Development Communication, ILDC, held its maiden induction ceremony on Thursday, July 27, Abuja, Nigeria.
Delivering his welcome address before an audience of eminent personalities, Stanley Chukwuemeka, the country director (Nigeria) of the ILDC, asserted that the Institute is founded on the core values of professionalism, discipline, integrity, transparency, team building and service.
According to Chukwuemeka, ILDC is the first and only institute in Nigeria focused on developing, building and expanding capacity of personnel in the fields of leadership and development communication. ILDC is a continental professional and learned body for development communication and leadership in Africa and is determined to support members, affiliates and clients to experience an unparalleled developmental journey that is intellectually, ethically, socially and personally transformative and focused on supporting men and women involved in making the world a better place through leadership and development (communication) work.
He further stated that though an international body, ILDC is registered as a full-fledged institute that can offer various qualifications that is guided by a constitution and intended as a one-stop non-governmental shop for all development workers on the continent. The ILDC would serve as an inter-agency forum and platform for knowledge sharing, research reservoir, national library for development activities, database for recruitment for development agencies, clearing house for quality control and platform for research and documentations that capture development activities in far flung geographies.
The Institute, he said would also establish a hall of fame to recognise and celebrate various categories of development workers. ILDC will also provide platform for those involved in development to become resource persons and advance the cause of community of practice in international development.
Speaking to the Awardees, he noted that their good deeds are creating ripples and have brought them this far hence the award as a fellow/member of the Institute for Leadership and Development Communication, ILDC. He further maintained for the records, that in a society where citizens now willingly buy awards and honours, not one of our Awardees paid cash for the honourary awards bestowed on them. “No ‘shishi’ was demanded and no ‘shishi’ was paid. All the awards are based on merit and the awardees contributions to development and humanity. We as an Institute are proud of this, and all our awardees should also.” He, therefore, enjoined others to follow suit by encouraging colleagues, juniors/mentees to join the ILDC.
Gabriel Nyitse, erudite guest speaker, who is also a Lecturer in the Faculty of Communication & Media Studies, Bingham University, Karu, spoke on the topic of “Leadership and Development Communication: Synergy for achieving Sustainable Development in Africa”.
Nyitse highlighted the quintessential the rudiment and qualities of good leadership notably amongst which are servitude; compassion, visionary; intrepid and leadership in curious.
Conclusively, he noted that development is all embracing and deals with every aspect of our lives including how we live, how we work and relate with one another. “Development means improving on the living standards of a people such as education, health, transportation and all the variables of development enunciated in the sustainable development goal document by the United Nations,” he said.
According to him, “Development is an antithesis to corruption, degradation, impairment, putrescence which all have negative impact. For Africans to get out of this development malice, African leaders must cultivate leadership qualities and skills that must harness the collective energies of their people, and in doing this, African leadership must be honest, shun corruption, nepotism, aviaries and dictatorship that lead to viciousness.” He said that “African nations must adopt pragmatic leadership recruitment strategy that will be based on competence and ability of those seeking leadership and not based on the Emilokan philosophy. “For these lofty ideas to work, development communication is key as government can help to educate their citizens and enlist corporation of their development goals or objectives by using the instrumentality of the media,” he said.
The deserving awardees at the event were presented with their awards of excellence and was immediately inducted of the new fellows and members of the Institute.
