Rt. Hon. (Dr.) Yusuf Buba Yakub has pledged to continue to offer his best efforts to improving the lot of humanity everywhere he finds himself.
The Director-General of the Nigerian Technical Aid Corps (NTAC),who restated the above in Abuja, Saturday ,when he received a Professional Fellowship Doctorate award of the Institute of the Chartered Economists of Nigeria (ICEN), dedicated the highly prized certificate to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for what he termed”the leadership he has demonstrated in less than one year since assuming the Office of President in the country.”
While also thanking the President of ICEN and members of the Governing Council of the Institute for finding him worthy of the award, Buba re-iterated his conviction that, in spite of how things may seem to be at the moment, Nigeria in the hands of the Tinubu Administration was bound to be a better place.
“For people like us, we can see the signs everywhere… the economic indices are all there already; things will surely get better. Just as His Excellency, Mr President said the other day, it’s like a woman getting through the pangs of labour. The pains of today are just the little short-term pangs we have to bear to birth a new Nigeria,”the former federal lawmaker,who was accompanied to the event by some Directors of the Corps, including Amb.Mohammed Mohammed and Lawal Ishiaka Adekola,among other staff,insisted.
Earlier, the Director-General of the Institute,Prof.Christopher O.Balogun,called on awardees of the Institute to prepare to arm themselves with statistics and other economic analysis tools.He said all these were important to address facts at all times.He also challenged them to avoid undue criticism of government,but instead,to state facts as they appear always.
Speaking further,Prof.Balogun also enjoined awardees, inductees and prospective Fellows of ICEN to be wary of corruption in all its known forms, especially, in public offices. He said the Institute was in close working partnership and collaboration with the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC),the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as well as other such bodies and must, therefore, request that its members flee all vestiges of the social cankerworm bedevilling the Nigerian society. He tasked participants in the conference to go and put to practice all that they had learnt from the day’s event for the benefit of the nation.
Among those who received the Institute’s Doctorate were Mr Ajayi Kehinde Daniel, Dr. Wulangs B. Yoshi as well as Mr Oyedeji Adeyemi. A number of other professionals also received the Fellowship of the Institute, while many more were inducted as members of the Institute following their participation in the programme during which four distinct papers were presented by scholars on various aspects of leadership and economic governance.
The Institute of Chartered Economists of Nigeria (ICEN), formerly known as the Economic Society of Nigeria, was chartered in 2019 by an Act of Nigeria’s Parliament.
Nkem Anyata-Lafia
Special Assistant( Media and Publicity) to the DG, NTAC
Saturday, December 9,2023.