Pathway to a New Nigeria

Last Thursday I had the privilege of hosting a National Conference organized by my Executive MBA 1 Alumni of the Lagos Business School Alumni Association. I had a first-class cast of speakers-Governors Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) of Lagos and Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers States; leading CEOs Aig Aig-Imoukhuede of Access Bank Plc and Larry E Ettah of UACN Plc; former Lagos State Health Commissioner, Dr Leke Pitan,; Pharmacist and distinguished politician, my “egbon” Jimi Agbaje; and Dr Tony Rapu, Senior Pastor of This Present House. Our firm RTC designed the concept, strategy, execution and provided rappoteurs for the programme. This week, I reproduce my welcome speech at the event for all readers:-

It is my pleasure and privilege to welcome you all to this conference organised under the auspices of the Lagos Business School Alumni Association (LBSAA) by the pioneer Executive MBA class of the Lagos Business School. The class is composed of 40 or so executives who participated in the executive MBA programme at the LBS between 1996 and 1997. We have met as an alumni group since our graduation in 1997 and it is my privilege to serve as current president.

In coming up with this event, we wanted to make a positive contribution not just to the school and its alumni, but to the wider Nigerian society and polity. We thought that rather than bemoan the failures and sub-optimality of the past 50 years, we should help refocus the national debate on planning not just for the next 20 years ala vision 2020, but for the next 50 years and perhaps beyond. We thought this is particularly important in this period of transition as our contribution towards shifting the discussion from personalities, zones, ethnic origins or even political parties to policies that would lead to the transformation of the Nigerian society. That is the thinking that led to this programme which we are all witnessing today

In coming up with the speakers, we were careful in picking speakers who tallied with our focus on positive themes, and all the speakers were selected for that reason alone. Any one who we proposed as a speaker today is in our view in a position, and has demonstrated capacity to contribute either as a private or public sector player to building a new Nigeria; and represents a theme or constituency that we believe critical in that regard- leadership and good governance, investments in social services and human capital, particularly education and health; economic growth and development; investment climate reforms, financial and capital markets; manufacturing and private sector development; national security and law and order; health sector reforms; elite leadership; national values and attitude reform; infrastructure and power; science and technology etc. These are the themes which informed the design of this interaction and the proposed speakers, and we invite the audience to contribute in the Q&A/Comments in furthering the debate.

We believe that Nigeria if it seeks to avoid the fate of an insignificant global player by 2020 or 2060 must rethink our direction. At the root is the need for transformation of our national value system to enthrone positive, altruistic and principle-based considerations rather than the materialistic and self-centered but clearly unsustainable society we are now building. This transformation can only be driven by a new type of transformational, service-oriented and selfless leadership-the type that transformed Singapore, China, India, Brazil and much of Europe and North America.

That leadership must focus on re-building our education system from the root right through to the universities. Education policy must now focus on quality, standards, ethics, science and technology and entrepreneurship. We need to build a health system based on sustainable financing and coverage. Our nation needs to become a law and order society, where crime and lawlessness have consequences and where citizens are secure. We must reform our investment climate and become more globally competitive, in order that both domestic and foreign investors can thrive and we must build efficient and transparent world class financial systems and capital markets. We need to radically restructure our economy from one dominated by trading, sub-modern agriculture and the export of crude oil to one in which value-added manufacturing, services and knowledge become our economic main stay. Our elite must become actively engaged in social and political leadership and we must develop a consensus across ethnic, religious or political divides about what Nigeria is all about and where and how we are going as a nation.

The real question is how do we do this? Hopefully by the end of this programme, the speakers and our audience will have shed some light on these issues. I thank those of our speakers who are here, and even those who in spite of their best efforts could not be with us. And I welcome those in the audience who have graced this event in spite of all our busy schedules. I am also grateful to members of the EMBA 1 class for supporting this project morally and financially.

I look forward to a useful session

Thank you very much.