Soludo, Rewane, Ogbu, Durotoye Sparkle At Anambra Retreat
Loading ...Former Central Bank governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo and former Chief Economic Adviser to the President, Prof Osita Ogbu may have fired the Governor Willie Obiano administration onto the path of effective governance with their insightful lectures on the first day of the two-day strategic retreat organized for the executive council members of the government of Anambra State in Awka on Friday.
The seminal presentations of Professors Soludo and Ogbu were effectively complimented by the brilliant presentations from the CEO of Financial Derivatives, Mr Bismark Rewane and charismatic public speaker, Mr Fela Durotoye who both offered immense depth to the retreat.
In his Keynote Address titled ‘Execution Effectiveness’ Prof Soludo warned of the dangers of tardiness in public service, pointing out that ‘planning without execution is nothing but hallucination.’
Drawing inferences from Jean Jacques Rousseau’s ‘Social Contract theory,’ Prof Soludo observed that government exists to fulfil five basic purposes which include security, justice, freedom and human rights, welfare and prosperity and the provision of happiness to the people.
He advised the members of the cabinet to apply themselves to the brass task of leadership since they had only 7,784 hours from the day of the lecture to the end of the service tenure to make a difference.
He also advised the incoming commissioners to adopt the best strategies of great team players that would help them to provide effective leadership to the team they would inherit on assumption of office; complimenting high performers and deploying the principle of reward and punishment with an even hand.
In his own submission, Prof Osita Ogbu warned of the likelihood of slipping into inertia after a brilliant first term in office and charged the team not to relent in raising the standards set by the Obiano administration in the first term even higher.
Ogbu who spoke under the theme: ‘Creating a Winning Team in Anambra; Lessons from World Cup winning Coaches,’ further emphasized the importance of creating ‘a society that cares.’
He further warned of the usual pitfall of dismissing the members of an inherited team as “useless” and charged the incoming commissioners to find out an effective way of fishing out bright stars in the various ministries that would help in the quest to build a better state.
Also speaking under the topic, ‘The World Around us – Economic outlook in the next One Year,’ the celebrated financial analyst, Mr Bismarck Rewane observed that Anambra has maintained a tradition of fiscal prudence and that the challenge facing the Obiano administration was the challenge of leaving a lasting legacy.
Throwing up some insightful statistics on the state, Mr Rewane observed that Anambra has the 4th lowest inflation rate as the year-on-year inflation figure stood at 12.82% as at February, 2018.
He further revealed that Anambra outperformed the federal government in Annual Average Budget Growth rate by 1.32% with an average rate of 13.96% as against the federal government’s average of 12.64% since 2014.
Mr Rewane also revealed that Anambra is the least indebted state with a domestic debt of N3.99bn and ranks 11th in IGR generation having grown her IGR by 54.3% to become the highest in the South East.
Earlier in his opening remarks, Governor Obiano had urged the participants to pay a close attention to the lectures as they were of immense benefits to his team.
“We are going to have a very serious four years. There will be no time for gallivanting,” he warned.
It would be recalled that Governor Obiano had started his first term in much the same way, holding a retreat that provided a crucial guide to the business of governance in the state.
