 With the quality of attendees today, I think I should award myself an initial pass mark for properly identifying the solution and by picking the right conference to attend personally. I also checked very diligently and found to my relief that there is no charge open or hidden for my own category of attendee. I was particularly alarmed when I looked behind the program and saw a list of pre-qualified, pre-paid attendees. So when I looked there and saw that it did not require me to pay, I really was very, very happy. Which means that I can derive the immense benefits from this gathering of the brightest and best in management free of charge. What remains is for me to consult with the President of the Institute as a true Nigerian to ask whether attendance at this one meeting qualifies me to start parading myself as a management expert. The theme of the conference, managing the challenges of democracy, really could not have been a better friend. I think it was one of the illustrious past presidents of the NIM and who is here today, Aladju Muhammad Abu Bakr, who I believe it was a 2006 conference, declared quite perceptively that all sectors of the Nigerian economy were suffering from endemic management failure. To carry his prognosis a little further, I would say that the central question, especially in the public sector today, is not the lack of talent or well-researched policies, but the weakness in getting things done or implementation. Doing things as opposed to talking about doing that. Implementation is possibly the central management challenge today and it is in my respectful view at the heart of the challenges of managing our democracy. So in every real sense our problem is a management one. The NIM achieved nothing else but a prescription on how to resolve the problem. You would certainly deserve to be described as national heroes, but to take the prize you will need to ensure implementation, beginning of course with all of us who are seated here today. Let me set out some of the issues, or as researchers will say, the problematic for your consideration. First is the central question of governance, ethics in the management of public resources. Second is the issue of merit over quotas and politics in the selection of talents and projects. Third are the challenges in human capital development and fourth is the problem of scale. Scale in social services, for example education, providing 21st century education to millions of children as a country heads for third place in world population in a few decades. Last but by no means the least is the problem of poverty and the creation of wealth and opportunity for the very many millions who are right for it today and the many coming behind. Regarding the first approach as a government has been first to tackle grand corruption, which in other words is the direct looting of the treasury by senior members of government. And the second is changing the systems that promote graft and corruption. This will be done by the introduction and implementation of the TSA, the PICA, Continuous Audit of Governmental entities. The insistence on full implementation of IPs, that's the electronic human resource platform, especially for the armed and uniform services who had for long somehow stayed off this transparent electronic platform. The whistleblower initiatives and other measures aimed at bringing greater transparency and scrutiny to public finance and the conduct of public affairs. The next level is to deepen the fight against corruption, especially in government procurement processes and government delivered services. We believe that technology and automation will help moving things away from the discretion of the desk officer to the agnostic electronic platform. We aim to ensure that every Nigerian is able to obtain documents such as passports, driver's licenses without having to pay bribes or suffer meaningless delays. But how do these efficiently, how to do this rather efficiently is really the implementation challenge. And of course we're open again to advice from the gurus. As to the question of moving more towards consistency in applying merit as a first consideration, as opposed to quotas as a first consideration in public appointments, especially in appointments within the public service, every part of Nigeria has great talents. Even if we're picking talents from every state, that choice should be merit-driven. The civil service has in the past three years insisted on examinations for promotion and even for permanent secretaries. That process must be maintained and final choices for education should follow the order of merit. There are many open questions, of course, on implementation. Again, over to you. The issues of capacity in human capital development, affordable healthcare for all, education especially getting out of school children into the school system, education of girls and relevant educational curriculum are from burner issues today. Healthcare for all cannot come from budget allocations alone. As of last week we have taken major steps in the provision of our universal coverage policy. In 2018, some will recall that we implemented the allocation of 1% of the CRF, 1% of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the government of Nigeria to healthcare. Consequently, we launched the first phase of the basic healthcare provision fund just last week with the disbursement of 6.5 billion to the first 15 qualifying states and the FCT. That money goes to special health insurance agencies in the states to reduce the hardship of patients who have to make out of pocket payments for healthcare. And we, of course, intend to spread this across all of the 36 days. The next level is the implementation of compulsory health insurance for all Nigerians on a co-payment basis with government. We are working at the level of the National Economic Council on the issue of education to achieve Mr. President's June 20th directives to state governments to ensure full implementation of free and compulsory education in the first nine years of the school life of every Nigerian child. The extensive use of technology, focusing on getting girls into schools, introducing mainstream subjects into the Quranic school system, and the implementation of the STEM curricula, in our case we call it STEAM, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths, are some of the main components of the educational plans that we have going forward. Some are familiar with the homegrown school feeding program. That program has been particularly helpful in ensuring an upward trajectory in enrollment into primary schools all across the country. Today we are in about 30 states during the homegrown school feeding program, feeding over 9.5 million children every day. There are many implementation challenges, of course, in how to ensure high quality education, especially scale. At the moment several programs including technology solutions are in use or being considered in various states. We need to efficiently identify the best options and to do so put them on scale so that they can benefit all of the states of the country and of course millions of children waiting to be educated. But the implementation of policies and programs to address the challenges of poverty, of wealth creation, of jobs for millions of young, active people, now and in the future, in my view requires collective thinking and action. While we have created appreciable value in agriculture, for example, with the anchor boroughs program by adding new jobs and acreage in party rise, sodom, millet, cassava and yam production, we recognize that it is in the agroalide value chain that the greatest value lies for jobs and improved productivity. So a crucial component of our cultural plans is the mechanization of agriculture. We have a program with the Brazilian government. The Brazilian government is making available the $1 billion facility, but that facility is to be provided in equipment where we intend to build service centers in every local government to render extension services, leasing of farm equipment, provision of improved inputs, etc. In addition, there will be six assembly plans for tractors and other agricultural equipment. But the enhancing of commerce in agriculture by the building of rural roads, access to markets, commodity exchanges are also priority items. The truth is that every development plan, every plan to create the number of quality of jobs that we have would have to do a lot with what our cultural outcomes are, what our plans are and how they are implemented, especially in the agroalide value chain. Also the expansion of opportunities in manufacturing. With the completion now of the first phase of the special economic zones, we are, of course, moving very quickly towards doing that, the Enyeba city in Abia, the leki free trade zone in Lagos, the Funtua cotton zones in Katsina. These are the immediate priorities and good progress has already been made thus far. We already have indications, investor indications from the Afroxene band from the AFDB. The IFC is also supporting the initiative very closely and of course the Bank of Industry. In addition, we are in collaboration with again the Bank of Industry in investing in infrastructure, in small business and commercial clusters all over Nigeria. Examples are leatherwork clusters, shoe making, food processing clusters, printer clusters, etc. These are to benefit from provision of power and equipment and other infrastructure, cluster by cluster across the country. Under what is described as an energizing economic scheme, we license and ensure the provision of power on a willing-buy, willing-seller basis to large and medium-scale markets, such as Subongari, for example, in Kano, Araria markets in Abia and Surah markets in Lagos. So what happens there is that we have private power producers who power these markets. Many of the examples we have are solar, but in Araria, for instance, we have a combination of solar and fuel-based power plant. But these are run by private individuals and the market people and shop owners are happy to pay a good price, happy to pay a cost-inflicted price for 24-7 supply of power. We intend to continue the energizing economy scheme. We also have the energizing university scheme where we are putting power. This is private power or we are licensing private power producers in 37 universities and seven colleges of technology. We believe that we can resolve a lot of the power problems by decentralizing power production and power generation and distribution, such that it's not just the discourse and the current privatized gencos that are producing power, but that anyone who is willing to produce power is able to do so and they were able to license sections to enable more people coming to the power market and produce power, especially on a willing buyer, willing seller basis. But it was in providing more, a better scope for jobs, especially for young people in technology and in innovation that we've been facing some of the most critical challenges, especially with respect to access to credit. Today, there are very many startups, many innovations, and of course in a country our size, the question is providing credit on scale and providing credit on an accessible basis. So the bank of industry has about 10 million that it has put aside for innovation in technology. But 10 million is not for a country this size, I mean enough. If it were Rwanda or perhaps in Ghana, yes, it might make an impact. But Nigeria is, I mean, Lagos alone is six times the economy of Rwanda, so there's just no way that we can, I mean, the kind of skill that's required is much, much bigger. So we've been talking to the AFDP, who's putting together a $500 million facility for innovation and for, you know, startups in technology. And we think that that can form the basis for giving more impact to a lot of the talent that we see today in technology and innovation. We've also started a technology advisory group, technology and entertainment advisory group, where we have a lot of the young men and women who are in technology and entertainment, advising government directly, advising government directly on the policies that are required for ensuring that the technology and all of the innovation that they're bringing forward is not stultified by regulation. For example, a lot of the FinTech companies, a lot of the FinTech companies are hybrid there, basically doing banking type transactions, but they can't be regulated like banks. They can't be licensed like banks. So there's, of course, a need for, you know, their own generic policies there, you know, and what we've tried to do is to provide those kinds of policies working closely with the central banking. With respect to small businesses as well, we've seen quite a bit of work being done, especially with MSMEs. And already we've done MSME clinics in about 24 states of Nigeria. And we've also established one stop shops for regulatory approvals in some zones. The clinics which are attended by all regulatory agencies have been an eye-opener for them as they hear and see the problems of small businesses firsthand. And this is quite important because so many small businesses, of course, have been complaining about the problems of NAFDAQ, getting approvals from NAFDAQ, SON, et cetera. So these clinics are very important in ensuring that the regulatory agencies themselves understand what the issues are. And that has led to some of the changes that we're seeing today. And, of course, we have to go beyond that. But it was in the process of thinking through the problem of access to credit for informal traders and businesses, especially petty traders, the so-called bottom of the pyramid in the commerce chain that we developed with the bank of industry, the government enterprises and empowerment scheme, what is better known as market money or trader money schemes. Now, when we think through budget, you know, especially in a democracy with the large numbers that we have, obviously, what our focus should be on how to ensure that the bottom of the pyramid, which of course is the largest number in the commercial value chain, gets some benefit and are empowered to do their own business as well. But that has always failed cycle after cycle in thinking through budget. And I think that one of the very important things is how countries with the size that we have and with the levels of poverty that we have would structure their budgets in such a way as to cater for that bottom of the pyramid. That is something that has always escaped us. And of course we cannot seriously talk about the welfare of the majority without budgets that think through the questions that concern the welfare of the majority. But what we've seen so far is that those schemes have greatly enhanced access to credit and they have improved the inventories of petty traders. Everywhere that I've been, you know, it's incredible just how little money is required to make a difference. Just last week we were in KB state, in the main market there. And I was going around with the governor looking at some of the new beneficiaries, with the governor and the bank of industry, looking at some of the new beneficiaries of the trade and money scheme. There was a particular lady who was there who we asked what she was selling, little vegetables. And we asked her how much her entire inventory was. It was just five hundred nine. Everything she was selling was five hundred nine. Now there's just absolutely no way that that can provide any kind of decently. But these are the vast majority of people in our value chain. Here in Abuja, in one of the markets here in Abuja, there was a lady who was selling her momo in a bucket. You know, the bucket, you know, taller than about this. So when I asked her how much her total inventory was, it was three thousand five hundred. And then I said how do you make profit? How do you survive on this? She didn't answer the question. She just pointed to the woman next to her whose momo was in a little bowl. She just pointed to that one. This is the person you should be asking that I'm a big player here. So it is evident that if we don't find solutions, you know, to some of those problems, some of those issues, it will become of course more and more difficult to take people out of poverty. And we've seen some of these schemes work in other parts of the world. We've seen these schemes work in India that has taken large numbers of people out of poverty. We think that these schemes will work here if they're faithfully and diligently implemented. They would work. But again, the question is one of scale. All we're able to do so far is two million people. That's, I mean, not a number well in excess of 40 million. We have many, of course, as you know, scratching the surface. But there are cherry news. The program recently won the AFDP prize for financial inclusion. And we think that, of course, there is room for improvement. How do we scale up? How do we ensure, you know, that this is done? Now, when you give 10,000 liras, when the payback, you give 15, when the payback 20, and it goes all the way up to 100. That's the trade-off money. Of course, the market money starts from 150 all the way up. And we found that there is diligence in payment. There's a lot of people who are paying back. Of course, because they know they will get more when they pay back. But we've also found that at that level, you know, people generally tend to be a lot more faithful for some reason, you know, paying back their debts. I don't want to go into the very embarrassing questions of Angkor and all of those. Perhaps there are many people here whom I don't want me to talk too much about that. Let me speak quickly to what will be done differently on the implementation of government plans in this dispensation. After the presidential policy dialogue which preceded the inauguration of ministers, the president developed a list of specific mandates for each ministry. So each of those mandates has clearly spelt out action points. Every minister has a clearly spelt out mandate with action points. Some of those mandates are about eight points or seven points. And the ministers are meant to render their first reports on performance in December. So in some senses we are moving to a more measurable way of determining whether ministers are doing what they ought to do. Whether ministries are doing what they ought to do. Of course there will be challenges, challenges of funding, challenges in some cases of clarity of plans and all of that. But we think that it makes far more sense where at least there is some clarity as to what you are required to do when you begin work as a minister. The full and effective performance of these mandates is of course always going to be a challenge. And of course we look forward to contributions again from the groups on this journey. As I close that may again commend the NIM for these many years of provoking thought and action on making our nation work for the benefit of all. I think that it's a very important forum, that this forum is a very important forum. There are few elite forums like this where there is a cross-fertilization of ideas, of disciplines and of course of world views that can do the quality of thinking and the rig of thinking that is required to work through the problems of a nation of the size and of the complexity of Nigeria. I really want to commend the NIM for the very many years of doing this very diligently and throwing up all of the issues. But just as I thought as I take my seat reading through the code of conduct of the NIM is so evident that if just those of us in this room including myself could comply with that code this country will be a completely different place. Completely different place. So I throw the challenge to the NIM. Let's walk. So it's now my very special pleasure and privilege to declare open this conference of this annual conference of the Nigerian Institute of Management for the benefit of all of the Nigerian people and to the glory of God. Thank you very much.