Renowned banker and business mogul, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, has said that Africa needs leaders with skills and abilities to drive reforms and make transformative changes work.
This was as he said his foundation, AIG- Imoukhuede Foundation, has injected $100 million in the training of over 3000 public leaders across the continent.
The training which he described as world class, is aimed at transforming service delivery and drive the needed change in Africa as a whole.
The Chairman, Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation spoke during the closing and graduation ceremony of the third cohort of public servants of AIG Public Leaders Programme, PLP in Abuja.
The philanthropist decried what he called "lack of investment in public sector personnel across all cadres".
He noted that at the root of Nigeria's many challenges in the public sector, there was a dire need for men and women who can lead a reformed public service space armed with the required skills to drive development in Africa.
Aig-Imoukhuede said his foundation believes that if the public sector is able to have personnel with effective leadership skills and abilities, Africa would be
not only be able to take its rightful place in the committee of continents, but also move from its present state of underdevelopment to join advanced nations.
"We have under invested significantly in the skills of public sector personnel both at the junior, middle and even at the senior levels and so we made a big commitment, $100 million commitment over a certain period of time to train up to 3000 public leaders at world class training level,"he said.
Noting that the programme trains between 70 and 100 public sector personnel every year, Aig-Imoukhuede said many other programmes were conducted by the foundation to build capacities of public sector employees to excel in the sector.
He said, "We also send West African public sector employees to Oxford University for a Master's in Public Policy, when we find Africans who have really excelled we also send them for fellowships, we also train Permanent Secretaries. Basically, we have a number of training programmes and we just have this commitment that if we train them, if we invest in them, Nigerians and Africans being what they are will excel in the industry in the chosen profession, in this case, the public sector."
"Our application pass rate is about 20% so when you see these men and women graduate from these programmes, they can work anywhere and they will excel in any government or even private sector responsibility."
Speaking at the event,the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Folasade Yemi-Esan , expressed appreciation to the foundation for making an impact on the nation's public sector.
She explained that graduands of the PLP were developed to function better, understand the importance of integrity, and carry out responsibilities beyond what the office they were currently sitting demands of them.
"The foundation has actually been assisting the office both technically and financially, and we really appreciate what AIG- Imoukhuede Foundation is doing.
"They championed digitalization, they also assisted the office to achieve a lot especially in our training programmes. We always get together to develop the curriculum of our in-house training programmes, and that's why our training programmes now are considered top notch.
"They have done a lot right from building capacity of permanent secretaries even to one on one mentoring as permanent secretaries, directors. The foundation has added a lot of value to the work of the Office of the head of service.
"I actually went through the curriculum; it's very rigorous. It also trains them to learn on their own their periods I particularly like the integrity part of the programme because it ensures that the public leaders of tomorrow understand what integrity is all about, understand why it is also needed in the public service,"she said.
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