Transportation Minister, Amaechi, Jamodu, others for leadership road-map on transportation

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Transportation Minister, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi

The Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi
Amaechi will on Thursday, April 28, lead a team of maritime and transport
captains and icons to design a road-map for responsive and accountable
leadership in the transport agencies and institutions in Nigeria at the
forthcoming Transport Leadership Lecture.

The event, which will take place at the
Hotel Colonades, Ikoyi, Lagos by 11 a.m, is being organized by Kings
Communications Limited, publishers of MMS Plus Newspapers, in collaboration with the Federal
Ministry of Transport.

the Minister is the Keynote Speaker, while
a former Minister of Industry and ex-President of Manufacturers’ Association of
Nigeria(MAN), Chief Kola Jamodu is the Guest Lecturer.

Foremost Shipbuilder and President of the Ship
Owners Association of Nigeria (SOAN) Engr. Greg Ogbeifun, is to chair and
moderate the event, featuring an array of maritime technocrats as panel of discussants.

The discussants are Otunba Kunle Folarin, Chairman, Ports
Consultative Forum; Barr. (Mrs.)
Margaret Orakwusi,Chairman, Ship Owners’ Forum; Barr. Emeka Akabuogu, Chief Convener,
Oil and Transport Logistics, Africa (OTL) Conference and Exhibition.

The forum will also feature the decoration
of the Nigerian Shippers’
Council(NSC) as the best Maritime Agency of the Year 2015, an
honour conferred on it by an industry-wide poll with 73 per cent in its favour,
17 per cent were indecisive, while 10 per cent settled for the Nigerian Ports
Authority(NPA).

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and
Safety Agency (NIMASA) and the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron had no
score in a poll of 105 respondents, conducted by Kings Communications Limited,
within a duration of six months.

Justifying the need for the Lecture at
this time of the industry history, the leader of the organising team, Mr Kingsley Anaroke, said, “The
maritime industry and the transport sector have been under attack of bad
leadership, which has eroded the benefits of transportation to the economy.

“So, the lecture seeks to address the
leadership content of the problems, which is the key to other problems. Simply
put, the character or leadership qualities of a leader to a large extent
determine the direction of an agency.”

“We are therefore calling on
Nigerians and transport sector operators in particular to join the campaign for
good leadership in the sector, especially against the prevailing practice of
having square pegs on round roles with the concomitant consequences of vision
derailment, looting of funds, human and material resources under-utilization,
among others.

“This initiative is also in sync with the ‘Change
Agendum’ of the Federal Government, aimed at bringing a new leadership
orientation and maximizing the available resources for the greater happiness of
the people, a mission Amaechi has hit the grounds running with since made the
Minister of Transportation,” Anaroke added.

He said that the recognition for the NSC
as the best maritime agency was an idea founded on research, aimed at creating
a performance enhancement and reward system to bring out the best in the
leadership of the transport agencies in Nigeria.

Anaroke said that was especially so
against the background of the alleged misappropriation of funds by some past
leadership of some of the agencies, in addition to clear cases of
non-performance and outright abandonment of statutory duties for
shadow-chasing.

He said the outcome of the brain-storming
session should be a compass for the government’s future leadership choices in
the industry and the expectations of the leaders as well as how the people can
hold them accountable by measuring their performances.