By; Bayo Akamo, Ibadan.
The Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP) on Wednesday inaugurated a 25 member multi-disciplinary technical core think tank.
Speaking during the inauguration at the school’s board room in Bodija, Ibadan, the school’s Executive Vice Chairman, Dr. Tunji Olaopa, stated that the mission of the school was to rethink the governance space in Nigeria and Africa, so as to “get government to work better.”
Dr Olaopa declared that in this era of change when Nigeria is seeking to migrate from the bad policies of the past, and the school, being a “research-driven, will mobilize expertise to get those in government to perform optimally”.
The Executive Vice Chairman stressed that the aim of the school was to grow to become a national think tank and resource centre for policy makers, adding that the think tank was at two difference levels. “one with Professor Akin Mabogunje as chairman and the other which was being inaugurated”.
Speaking further, Dr Olaopa gave terms of reference of the group to include “brainstorm on topical issues deemed relevant for understanding of Nigeria’s development and democratic challenges and rethinking the direction around which issues of development and democracy can be crafted.”
The think tank is made up of experts on governance, media, institutional reform, macroeconomics, energy economics, trade and tariff policy, demography, social statistics, local government and rural development, legal reforms and jurisprudence, science and technology policy, crime, criminality and security, foreign policy, labour and industrial relations, education, youth activism, gender, ICT, spirituality, religion and ethics, entrepreneurship, business and investment analysis, banking and finance, among others.
Also, the technical core group is made up of scholars and practitioners such as Prof. CBN Ogbogbo, of the Department of History, University of Ibadan; Prof. Ayo Olukotun, Dr. Stephen Lawani, Dr. Festus Adedayo, Dr. Omo Aregbeyen of the Department of Economics, University of Ibadan, Dr. Adesina Afolayan of the Department of Philosophy of the same university, Dr. Akeem Amodu of the Lead City University, among others.
