Prof Ekpu Named Chairman As Ezekwesili Delivers Realnews 5th Anniversary Lecture

Professor Akpan Hogan Ekpu, Director-General, West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management, WAIFEM, has been named Chairman for the 5th Anniversary Lecture of Realnews Magazine.

Recall that Maureen Chigbo, the Publisher, Realnews Magazine and Publications Limited, had earlier named Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, former Minister of Education, as the first female to deliver the magazine’s annual lecture series.

Themed “African Leadership in a Turbulent Era”, this year’s edition of the event will hold on Thursday, November 16, 2017 at the Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, by 10 am prompt.

According to Chigbo, a panel of discussants will leverage on the topic to speak on how leadership crisis is affecting different sectors in Nigeria and the way forward.

Amongst the expected panelists are Mr. Ahmed Kuru, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON, Mr. Waheed Olagunju, executive director, Bank of Industry, BOI, and Dr. Maikanti Baru, group managing director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. Both the lecturer and all of the panellists have confirmed their attendance at the event.

Chigbo said of the event, “There is also the looming threat of nuclear war in the Korean peninsula. This is coming at a time when African countries are struggling with ceaseless political and socio-economic turbulence, high youth unemployment and hundreds if not thousands of young people from the continent perishing in the Mediterranean Sea on perilous journeys to Europe in search of so-called greener pastures.

“From South Sudan where warlords appear bent on disintegrating the country, to the lingering Boko Haram insurgency in West and Central Africa, coupled with a rash of uprising by separatist groups including the Niger Delta militants and Independent People of Biafra in Nigeria and the increasing wave of terrorism in other parts of Africa, the prognosis looks bleak, to say the least,” he said.