President Koroma Launches Positive Attitude week

His Excellency the President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma will on Monday the 1^st of October 2012 launch the Positive Attitude Week organised by the Attitudinal and Behavioural Change (ABC) Secretariat in consultation with the Ministry of Information and Communications at the British Council Hall Tower Hill in Freetown. The theme for the Positive Attitude Week is Positive Attitude and Behaviour: the Yardstick of Socio-Economic Growth and Development.  This was disclosed by the Executive Director of the Attitudinal and Behavioural Change (ABC) Secretariat Dr Ivan Ajibola Thomas in a press statement at his Youyi Building office in Freetown.  (Photo: HE President Ernest Bai Koroma)

According to Dr Ajibola Thomas this is an attempt to identify positive attitude and behaviour in our moral and value system for emulation and cultivation. He said that the positive attitude week is to get Sierra Leoneans in the public and private sectors to be committed to the socio-economic transformation from the least developed country to a progressive developing nation. He said that under development is comprehended in the past with high infant mortality and maternal morbidity, poor social and technological infrastructures, lack of good governance institutions and failure in the agricultural, educational, public and private sectors. The reason for this lack of socio-economic growth and development is the display of negative attitude and behaviour such as endemic corruption, lack of transparency and accountability, bad governance, and the decline of values and standards.

Dr Ivan Ajibola Thomas called for the replacement of negative attitude with positive ones for socio-economic growth to be sustained in Sierra Leone. He maintained that we cannot change our past or the inevitable but we can change our attitude so that negative behaviour will not impinge adversely on our national developmental programmes. Dr Thomas believes that to effect change in the public and private sectors, there should be compliance to code of ethics, rule and regulations. There must be adherence to standards and the values of professionalism, transparency and accountability, selflessness and integrity. Our socialization process should be enabled to process quality citizens to adequately contribute to the socio-economic development in the country he added.

Commenting on the attitude and behavior in relation to the forth coming elections, Dr Ajibola Thomas (in photo above) said that Sierra Leone as a nascent democracy should imbibe the principles of a free, fair and peaceful election free from all forms of violence. He said that the ABC Secretariat has conducted a countrywide campaign on political tolerance and political motivated violence during which positive attitude during political canvassing and electioneering was encouraged whilst the negative attitude of political violence was discouraged. Dr Thomas affirms that this political education was significant because economic growth and development will only be supported by political stability

The National Coordinator and Second-in-Command of the Attitudinal and Behavioural Change Secretariat Madam Nanette Thomas explained that  each day of the positive week is specifically designed to attract specific target groups within our good governance institutional framework such as the educational institutions, political parties, civil and military forces, public and private entities, civil societies, religious and grassroots organisations. She hoped that the need for individual and societal transformation would be felt to facilitate socio-economic growth and development in the country.

She said that His Excellency the President Dr Ernest Bai Koroma who is the initiator and guiding spirit of the attitudinal and behavioural change campaign in Sierra Leone, was specifically chosen to  serve as the Keynote speaker because of his enormous and invaluable contribution to the socio-economic development in Sierra Leone. Madam Thomas (in photo above) stressed that under his leadership, the country has witnessed unparalleled success in national development as reflected in the agenda for change programme which prioritized agriculture, social and technological infrastructural development, free medical and health care for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under-fives, transparency and accountability and good governance, national electrification projection and road construction.

Madam Nanette Thomas said the sustainability the gains made on our socio-economic growth and development should be the concern of all Sierra Leoneans stressing that change of the negative attitude such as fatalism, tribalism and nepotism and encourage positive attitude such as patriotism, professionalism nationalism, altruism, empathy and sympathy.  She concluded that these are the yardstick for socio-economic growth and development.

By Dr. Ivan Ajibola Thomas, Executive Director Attitudinal and Behavioural Change (ABC) Secretariat

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