 I am greatly honoured by your kind invitation to join you this morning at the 2020 annual Directors Conference of the Institute. The Institute takes the credit for the development of Nigeria's finest dream of business executives and directors in the fulfilment of their legal and personal responsibilities to the corporate entities they serve and of course to Nigeria as a whole. But I am particularly excited about the recent efforts of the Institute to standardise the practice of sound ethical values and lead by example with the introduction of the IOD Code of Ethics 2020 for members and staff of the Institute in August 2020. And therefore congratulate the President, Chief Chris Okuno, who many of you know is from the best schools in the world, Ibubi College and the Faculty of Law University of Lagos for staring at the course of the Institute towards global best practices. I am sure you know, I am offering no prizes for guessing that the two schools I mentioned are also the schools that I attended. My brief remarks were sent around a question that has occupied my mind for many years and led to my co-founding the Convention on Business Integrity with my friend and brother, Sojiya Pampa in 1997. I believe Sojiya is also listed to speak today. How do you most effectively convey the truth to corporate entities, to companies that integrity pays, that business ethics is as crucial to the bottom line and to everything else, as there are all the more obvious factors in delivering profitability and recognition and success for a company? The question is complicated by the notion that business ethics is itself an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. How can you survive in the cutthroat survival of the fittest environment of business with any kind of concern for morality? Besides, in countries where regulatory oversight and law enforcement is weak or slow, there would seem to be, at least in the short term, no particular advantage in choosing ethical behavior over profit. But the arguments in favor of business ethics are much stronger. Aside from the more obvious connection between respect for obligations, sanctity of contracts and the reliability of trustworthiness and business success, clearly on ethical practices, on ethical accounting practices, false communication to shareholders or to the public, where it is sanctioned by leadership, results at least in employee cynicism and defeats the commitments to corporate visions and objectives. If the employees believe that the bosses are crooks or prepared to bend the rules, they will also seek ways, at least some of them, of short-secuding rules for personal benefit. Besides, for others, the frequent clashes between conscience and wrongful behavior will eventually create a toxic work environment and destroy corporate objectives and visions. There's also enough history anyway of how cutting corners and dishonesty ultimately brings down the whole enterprise. And this we've seen in the facts behind the collapse of many Nigerian financial institutions, from the 90s to the more recent occurrences in 2009, 2010. Yes, it took a while for these institutions to unravel, but the point is made that on the long run, ethical practices are unsustainable. Besides, for quoted companies, the dangers of unethical behavior are much greater. Local and international investors have greater access to information and more options than ever before. The slightest wave of scandal or malfeasance can destroy a value that's been built up over the years. The local and especially the international examples of the collapse of companies thought to be too big to fail and brand names that had even once been associated with integrity and strong business ethics is a strong reminder of just how brittle edifices build on weak business ethics are. Today, every company's stakeholders are far more than investors, management, or even employees. They now include customers, clients, trade partners, suppliers, the media, and the general public and, of course, government, and now the environment. These additional relationships have become, especially in an age of clearly excessive information flows, as important in the accountability metrics of companies as their traditional stakeholders. And this probably explains the new place of open, corporate social responsibility efforts and the strong environmental stewardship initiatives that many companies are adopting around the world. Companies must now show, like human beings, that they are not only profitable, but that they are good by measures of character and concern for the environment and society. According to a study which I came across by Nielsen, 55% of online shoppers in 60 countries would accept paying more for goods or services from companies that are focused on having a positive impact on society and the environment. And it's becoming more so. People are paying more attention to good corporate citizens. They are paying more attention to the good that companies are doing and they are matching that with their preference of such companies. The empirical evidence is beginning to match our intuition more forcefully every day. However, the key to all of this is leadership. Leadership that believes the evidence and realizes that business ethics are not just moral preachments, but important foundations for profitable and sustainable businesses in the 21st century. Indeed, for Nigerian business leaders, the theme of this conference is a challenge to conquer in our own interests the new frontiers in business ethics, ethical leadership, and sustainability. Let me again thank the executive members of the IOD for this opportunity. I wish you excellent deliberations and I look forward to receiving your conclusions at the end of the conference. Thank you very much. God bless you.