OBAFEMI AWOLOWO FOUNDATION
28 LANRE AWOLOKUN ROAD
GBAGADA PHASE II
LAGOS
E-mail: centenary@awolowofoundation.org

Ọbafẹmi Awolọwọ Foundation Holds Special Dialogue on Good Governance and Transformative Leadership

In keeping with its mandate to generate topical ideas for national development, the Ọbafẹmi Awolọwọ Foundation (OAF), a non-governmental and non partisan organisation, holds a special dialogue centered around the theme “Transformational Leadership and Good Governance: Lessons From the Awolọwọ Example” slated for the late sage’s country home at Ikenne, Ogun State. The special dialogue which will hold on the 20th and 21st of July, 2011, is billed as a scholarly intervention and exegesis of transformational leadership with a view to distilling insights from the Awolọwọ model of good governance.

Eminent scholars, at home and abroad, will provide the concepts and theories for remapping and understanding Nigeria’s leadership crisis in order to generate ideas that will jumpstart the national search for good governance in our infant democracy. The foundation recalls with delight the seminal policy reforms and visionary innovations undertaken by Chief Ọbafẹmi Awolọwọ, who led the Western Region between 1952 and 1960, continue to reverberate 24 years after he passed on and to spin off a best practices roadmap for successive office holders.

In this light, the dialogue will interrogate the calibre and quality of contemporary leadership by employing the Awolọwọ paradigm of transformative leadership as well as situate our persisting problems of arrested development and drift in historical and thematic context. Among the paper presenters at the 2-day event are Professor Itse Sagay, eminent legal scholar and human rights activist, who will deliver the keynote address; Professor Pat Utomi, Director of Lagos Business School and politician; Professor Banji Oyeyinka-Oyelaran, Director of the Global Monitoring Division of the Nairobi Office of UN-Habitat; former Vice-Chancellor of University of Abuja and influential political scientist, Professor Nuhu Yaqub; Dean of the faculty of Administration, Ọbafẹmi Awolọwọ University, Ile Ife, Professor Williams Fawọle; as well as Professors David Ọkẹ, Diji Aina, Ayọ Olukọtun, among others.

The dialogue is expected to be an intellectual feast, featuring both scholarly and policy oriented ideas that would inform the national introspection on effective leadership models and illuminate the current national conjuncture. It will bring to bear on its thematic thrust an international perspective that will highlight the leadership experiences of other nations as a comparative and cross cultural enterprise. The special dialogue will be flagged off with an opening session, which will be chaired by Prince Bola Ajibola, former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of the Federation as well as international jurist, a welcome address by the Executive Secretary of the Foundation, Dr. Tokunbọ Awolọwọ Dosumu, Nigeria’s former Ambassador to the Netherlands, as well as an address by His Excellency, Dr. Oluṣẹgun Mimiko, Executive Governor of Ondo State.

The general public is hereby invited.

Dr. Ọlatokunbọ Awolọwọ Dosumu
Executive Secretary
Ọbafẹmi Awolọwọ Foundation