T
he Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Mrs. Nkechi Ejele, has charged cultural workers in the ministry to strive for professional skills, attitudes and knowledge that will enable them to properly articulate policies that will rejuvenate the sector and contribute to the Transformation Agenda of the President Goodluck Jonathan administration.
She gave this charge while declaring open, 3-Day Workshop on “Repositioning Cultural Workers for Improved Productivity,” packaged for staffers of the Ministry by National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), on Wednesday, July 17, 2013, at the Global Village Suites, Koroduma, off Abuja-Keffi Express Way, Nasarawa State.
According to her, the Nigerian Public Service has a pool of professional officers, which makes it incumbent for skills, knowledge, capacity and attitudes of civil servants to be constantly updated to meet the challenges of development within the sector.
Her words: “As civil servants, we must engage ourselves in analyzing the goals of the government, which no doubt, include re-orienting ourselves in the areas of integrity, transparency, accountability, hard 
work, team spirit, ethical re-orientation and security consciousness among others, which are very critical for us to deliver on our schedules.”
Further disclosing to participants, the imperative of acquiring knowledge and the right conduct through platforms like this, Ejele said as the first set of officers to be trained under the new initiative of collaborating with NICO, a parastatal under the ministry, whose sole mandate is training cultural workers, they should ensure that at the end of the workshop, they return to the ministry equipped with the right knowledge and attitude.
E
arlier, the Director of Human Resources Management in the ministry, Mrs. Olayinka Olatunji, mni, stated that the workshop was the first professional training programme, which has been organized for cultural officers of the ministry.
She recalled that although staffers in the ministry have been continuously exposed to one form of training or the other, but when the Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Nkechi Ejele, came to the ministry early this year with her wealth of experience from the Systems Wide training programmes, from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, she felt workers in the ministry would profit more by going through professional skills development training like the one taken place.
Her words: “Luckily for us, we do have NICO which is an Institute specifically established for that purpose. We also have the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), which government also specifically established for the purpose of training in the tourism and hospitality sector. So, really, there is no reason why we should not avail ourselves of professional skills development within our own sector of the economy. The
refore, I will simply say that I believe that we are in good hands today in the hands of NICO.”
In his vote of thanks, NICO’s Executive Secretary, Dr. Barclays Foubiri Ayakoroma, expressed appreciation to the Honourable Minister, Chief Edem Duke, the Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Nkechi Ejele, and the Director, HRM, Mrs. Olayinka Olatunji, mni, for the opportunity to organise the capacity building programme.
Dr. Ayakoroma promised that the workshop will be an exciting platform that would make cultural workers have a sense of belonging, adding that whatever challenges militating against the maiden edition would be overcome in no distant time.
The 3-Day Workshop, which is expected to feature seven paper presentations, Syndicate Group Discussions, and Rumour Clinic, ends on Friday, July 19, 2013.
Caleb Nor
Corporate Affairs