THIS piece is the third and final instalment in a three-part series. You can read the first instalment here and the second one here.
NAHCON simply chose to keep its expenses within its means and also helped Nigerian pilgrims to benefit from the commission’s resource management expertise. In spite of the cost-saving practice and ambition as later stated in a press conference addressed by the Chair of NAHCON. NAHCON has since gone ahead with the establishment of the National Hajj Institute. The pioneer registrar has since assumed duty signalling full readiness for business which obviously will enhance the economic viability of the resource-efficient NAHCON.
Though with a rather conservative disposition to publicity, the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, NIOMR, under Prof Tunde Lawal Salako has earned itself an inimitable rating in the nation’s health sector enabling it to save many lives. How?
Unknown to Prof Salako his efforts to restore efficiency, transparency and integrity even at the expense of personal ego had become a big talk of the town among those who had interfaced with NIOMR after he assumed duty there. As if provisions never existed for NIOMR maintenance before him, the entire compound suddenly transformed, coupled with unprecedented devolution of powers including the creation of the office of Deputy Director General, a most compelling necessity in a star-studded entity with an array of tested researchers and professors.
When covid-19, therefore, broke out and philanthropic organizations were anxious to volunteer support to credible organizations that could judiciously manage resources, NIOMR topped the list. Assorted donors including a bank, civil society organizations as well as some other local and international donors promptly rushed out resources to NIOMR to avail vulnerable Lagosians the opportunity to test for free. Yours sincerely was a beneficiary. But how many public officers are conscious of the need to be accountable if only to self-recommend for respectable reckoning by the general public?
Ingenious as ever, Prof Salako has since gone ahead to take maximum, yet altruistic, advantage of the huge trust the public has in him. The humble, yet foremost, African nephrologist is breaking new ground with the establishment of the NIOMR Foundation to take medical and allied research to inspiring heights in Nigeria.
The foundation’s board is being chaired by the cerebral 14th Fulani Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and also includes other dignitaries including the present Works Minister, Babatunde Fashola.
Since only the good can attract the good, it’s up to all Nigerians to consciously activate better reckoning for transparency to endear it to one another to make for desired development.
