The Executive Secretary of National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), Dr. Barclays Ayakoroma, has said that effective cultural orientation boosts productivity in the work environment, even as the way one relates to subordinates, colleagues and superiors would also go a long way in enhancing productivity.
Ayakoroma stated this in his paper, titled, “Understanding the Dynamics Of Culture in the Work Environment,” at the 5-day customised workshop on, “Repositioning Cultural Workers for Improved Productivity,” organised by NICO for staff of the Department of Culture, Federal Ministry of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, at the Oasis Garden Hotel, Mararaba, Nasarawa State.
The ES-NICO stated that, workers needed to dress to give them identity as a people, saying, “this rekindles interest and pride in our indigenous dress patterns, which encourages unity among different ethnic groups through integrated dress culture. It also encourages socio-economic growth of local textile industries to create jobs for unemployed youths and promotes patriotism.”
Ayakoroma further stated that, culture workers should use food as a veritable instrument for Nigeria’s cultural diplomacy objectives, capturing the African continent and that being patriotic about local cuisines should be one of the priorities of Nigerians.
According to him, language as a cultural component has the potential for encouraging tolerance, dialogue and co-operation, and can create conducive atmosphere for income generation and poverty reduction, decrying the fact that people do not take pride in their indigenous languages as cultural components that give people identity, and that Nigerian Languages were not being given serious attention as taught subjects in the educational system.
He disclosed that, NICO, as part of the its sensitisation programmes, organises a one-month intensive long vacation Nigerian Indigenous Language Programme (NILP) and Weekend Indigenous Language Programme (WILP), as a practical way of encouraging the learning of the mother tongue in many families.
Continuing, Ayakoroma charged culture workers to develop intercultural competence, stressing that, “we should be interculturally competent because it is the ability of successful communication with people of other cultures. A person, who is interculturally competent, captures, understands and interacts with people from foreign cultures.”
Ama Essien
Corporate Affairs Unit
NICO HQ, Abuja