Respect as a value is deeply ingrained in Agile. To my mind, no real collaboration can happen without it. Collaboration and true progress occur largely where the opinions of all stakeholders are highly valued and respected. It is therefore inspiring to see how Nigerian Agilists #agileforgoodgovernance are looking to drive the agenda in the country. Quite frankly however, its easy to see how tall an order this is just thinking about where we are as a people and as a nation. Still, #WeMove.
For example and with regards to respect, in Nigeria, there is a deeply embedded culture where the youth population is overlooked largely by the older generation. This posture I believe is derived from the pervasive notion that age is synonymous to wisdom. This unfortunate posture to my mind remains the bane of inclusion of the younger generation in governance and leadership especially in public service. Shed this arrogant stance we must else the world will leave us behind (oops! did that happen already?)
Recently my teenage daughter narrated a very disturbing experience where in a phone conversation with a certain staff at a Nigerian establishment and whom she had asked that he repeat himself considering that some background noise had hindered the conversation. The staff angrily retorted: “Am I not speaking English? Or are you deaf?!” The poor girl was baffled and taken aback! You see, she’s not been groomed that way; to have an adult address a child like that! According to her she had to take a moment to compose herself, get over the unnecessary insult and then continued with the conversation. Pray. What gives a so called adult the right to speak to a younger person that way? Isn’t this part of the argument going on with the younger generation in the country today? How they’ve come to believe without a shadow of doubt that the older generation exists only to frustrate their very existence!
Still on her experience at the establishment, my daughter went ahead to share with me:
“…I was just pondering over the way they were treating other candidates there”
“…But they should really teach these people a thing or two about how to address people”
Deeply moved by her sordid encounter, I promptly apologized. I apologized that she had to witness such shenanigans from persons meant to be public servants. Over the years, I’ve made many of these apologies: For systems that don’t work, from being in establishments where she’s had to remain on a queue for half of an entire day, because the staff of the establishment in question derive their relevance from having people wait for their attention! (This is so messed up!)
On a particular occasion, and having failed to achieve her aim of correcting some documentation error, she was to return the next day. Why? Because according to the staff they only attend to 10 people per day! Did I say that these people get paid salaries for being this way?
Its sad because we as adults grew up in this very dysfunctional system and our own children are having to undergo the very same things. I thought societies were designed to progress?!
The most difficult part of this situation is that children who are constantly exposed to this dysfunction without a contrary correctional push back from other forces (akin to what we as parents do with my daughter), grow up accepting this horrible pattern as a norm. And because the criteria for being in governance for example isn’t particularly elaborate, these dysfunctional youths grow up to find themselves leading government establishments at both federal and state levels, actively perpetuating these very same behaviours! Its a vicious cycle that has to be broken!
Progressive societies aren’t built this way. Respect should be at the core of our very existence. And today’s world is evolving creatively and innovatively largely because of the audacious contributions of the youth population. To discountenance this fact in itself would be disrespectful.
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