Seven days from today, Thursday, April 23, to be precise, Nigerians who value the role of intellection in national development will gather, once again, at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, for the 2026 edition of TheNiche Lecture. This will be the fifth in the series and typically, it promises to be another harvest of ideas with a rather eclectic theme: “Governing the economy: Choices, Trade-offs, and National Priorities”.
Nigerians are thrilled. But the buzz is not just about the theme. It has to do majorly with the dramatis personae – Dr Alex Otti – guest speaker; HRH Muhammadu Sanusi II, Emir of Kano – chairman; and Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe (Agbogidi), Obi of Onitsha, royal father of the day – who are unarguably some of the country’s sharpest minds with exceptional mental acuity in public finance.
Before becoming Abia governor on May 29, 2023, Otti, a renowned banker, was the Managing Director of Diamond Bank Plc., a major Nigerian retail bank that merged with Access Bank in 2019 to form a larger entity.
Similarly, Emir Sanusi was the Managing Director of First Bank of Nigeria – the country’s oldest bank, and one of Africa’s largest financial institutions. He was also Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
Agbogidi, who bagged a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Stanford University and a Master’s in Business Administration from Columbia University, had a long and distinguished career with Shell Petroleum Company. So valued was he that even after his retirement in 1995, the oil giant seconded him to Shell International in London, where he served as “ambassador at large” for Shell Nigeria, a position he occupied until his emergence as the 21st Obi of Onitsha in May 2002. He was also chairman of Diamond Bank Plc.
The fervent passion of the trio for Nigeria’s economic renaissance makes them kindred spirits. And getting all three, particularly Otti, a man not given to needless showboating despite his giant leadership strides in Abia, to play pivotal roles in the 2026 lecture is no mean feat. But we are not called TheNiche for nothing. We always go for the best minds when looking for solutions to Nigeria’s myriad problems.
When the newspaper debuted in April 2014, the editorial policy captured its mission: “TheNiche will always anchor its position on the need for social justice, fairness and respect for human and communal rights … will be uncompromising against any form of discrimination and subjugation either by tribe, gender or religion.”
In pursuit of these ideals, the organisation in 2018, set up a foundation TheNiche Foundation for Development Journalism – a vehicle to drive the annual lectures and the weekly Young Entrepreneur page, our very idea of an ideal Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR.
The maiden lecture with the theme, “Development reporting and hysteria journalism in Nigeria,” was delivered by Professor Kingsley Moghalu, journalist, diplomat, erudite scholar and author, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and presidential candidate of the Young Progressives Party, YPP, in the 2019 elections, while Remi Sonaiya, another prolific author, Professor of French Language and Applied Linguistics, Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, and only female presidential candidate in the 2015 general election under the platform of the KOWA Party, was the chairperson.
The choice of the lecture theme which held on April 20, 2018, was informed by the hysteria that preceded the 2019 elections and the need to lower the rhetoric.
The focus shifted, and rightly so, after the election was won by the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari, to the economy. TheNiche clinically analysed that the economy was heading for the rocks and there was an urgent need to make it the dominant issue of Buhari’s second term.
So, the October 15, 2019 lecture aptly themed, “Business and accountable governance: The obligations of leadership,” was delivered by Nigeria’s foremost interdisciplinary scholar, Professor Anya O. Anya, under the chairmanship of the late Dr Christopher Kolade, diplomat, academic and distinguished broadcaster.
On Thursday, September 8, 2022, former Lagos State Governor and then Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, delivered the third edition of the lecture at the MUSON Centre, Onikan Lagos with the theme, “2023 elections and the future of Nigeria’s democracy.”
We had envisaged then that the 2023 elections would be consequential because Nigeria was at a crossroads, haunted by demons many thought had hitherto been exorcised. But seven years of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency had brought out the worst in Nigerians as the late Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, noted in his epic song, “Beast of No Nation.”
So, on the eve of that pivotal election, TheNiche, once again, shifted the focus to politics and the country’s leadership recruitment process and saddled Fashola, a learned silk, with the responsibility while Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, veteran First Republic politician, human rights activist, former Liaison Officer to the late President Shehu Shagari and founding member of the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, chaired the event.
The fourth edition, which held on Thursday, October 26, 2023 at the NIIA followed the same pattern. Nigeria was at a crossroads, no doubt, as it still remains today, teetering on the brink. All the indices of human development, without any exception, were pointing south at the end of Buhari’s disastrous eight-year tour of duty.
While most nations stride and move to greater heights, Nigeria strides and slips. So, why is Nigeria endlessly striding and sliding? That was the theme of the 2023 lecture delivered by Rotimi Amaechi, erstwhile Minister of Transportation and former governor of Rivers State. The decision to saddle him with that onerous task was deliberate because to borrow a cliché, he knows where all the bodies are buried by virtue of the positions he has held since 1999.
A two-term Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, he also became a two-term governor of the oil-rich state, and was twice the Director-General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation and Minister of Transportation. He also aspired for the presidency in 2023.
But because we also acknowledged the fact that Nigeria didn’t start striding and sliding in 1999, the lecture was chaired by Dr Uma Eleazu, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Anya-Ndi-Igbo, a non-partisan, socio-political and economic development-oriented organisation, committed to equity, peace, unity, justice and progress of Nigeria, whose magnum opus, “Nigeria, As I See It: Reflections on the Challenge of Leadership,” a 418-page book is a most authoritative commentary on Nigeria.
Yet, this year’s lecture promises to be different in significant ways. As Nigeria goes into another silly season of politics, both the electorate and the politicians jostling for power need to be reminded, to use the phrase of James Carville, President Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign strategist, that ‘it is the economy, stupid.’
A lot is really at stake, but it all boils down to an economy that remains distressed, all protestations to the contrary, notwithstanding.
There is no better choice to deal with the issues than Otti, who, not only has cognate experience but also demystified governance in less than three years with a stellar performance many were beginning to think was impossible in Nigeria due to past and present failures.
The lecture theme, “Governing the economy: Choices, Trade-offs, and National Priorities,” is broad and will enable him speak to a lot of contemporary economic issues with respect to fiscal discipline and the political will to make tough calls. It will also give him enough room to deal with the broader subject of national development as it relates to short, medium and long term multi-sectoral priorities.
As all roads lead to the NIIA on April 23, Governor Otti is excited. So are we, knowing full well that through these lectures, we are giving back to the society, TheNiche way.
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