Ambode: Information Management key to placing government in positive perspective

Lagos State Government, Akinwunmi Ambode on Tuesday charged top civil servants to ensure proper dissemination and management of information to the public in order to place government in the right perspective.

The governor spoke while declaring open a two-day training on “Positive Perception Of Government Programmes: The Role Of The Lagos State Civil Service,” held in Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.

According to Ambode, proper information management would showcase government’s competence, fairness, and caring, which he said were necessary ingredients to placing government in the right perspective.

“A lack of any one of them is enough to weaken legitimacy. For instance, if the government is perceived as unfair, then its legitimacy is reduced even if it is otherwise seen as being competent and caring. Indeed, it is difficult to argue or disagree with the postulations above and the reason why I have gone to some length to identify these parameters is so that I may point out what the objectives of information management by civil servants in Lagos State ought to be,” Ambode, who was represented by the Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Dr. Benson Oke stated.

According to him, “what influences the will of the people is information and the way it is managed. This is why every responsible government will place premium on the establishment, maintenance, and sustenance of a modern, robust, effective and scalable information management system.

“The responsibilities for all these fall on the civil service, of course. In most democracies, the civil service represents the ‘permanent government’ that must be equipped to adequately advise the government of the day, implement government programmes, and effectively communicate the reasoning behind government-sanctioned programmes to the citizens.

“The net effect is that, if civil servants are well-equipped to discharge these tasks, the programmes of government will be positively perceived by the populace and will thus receive the needed support for success,” Ambode said.

He said the training would expose civil servants to how they could be better equipped to accurately, effectively, and positively communicate government decisions, actions, and programmes to the citizens of Lagos State and the world at large.

The governor stated that it was imperative for one to begin to see how civil servants could creatively utilize data to generate ideas and communicate government actions and performances in order to ensure positive perception of government by the citizens.

“I therefore challenge the Lagos State Civil Service to come up with data-backed and data-inspired ideas. Many government agency executives have important messages to deliver, and the success of their communications is crucial to the agency’s success.

“Senior executives need to deliver effective mass communications to the agency employees, concerned citizens, and other stakeholders while maintaining impeccable standards that live up to the ever-increasing scrutiny of today’s communications environment. There are empirical methods that drive successful communications which agencies can seek out now,” he added.