—Former aviation minister delivers 35th anniversary keynote
UMUAHIA: Founder and Chancellor of the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership and former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, will on Thursday deliver the keynote lecture marking the 35th anniversary of the creation of Abia State.
The lecture, titled “Abia at 35: The Rise of a New Abia,” is part of activities commemorating the creation of the state on August 27, 1991.
Chidoka, who is also a former Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, is expected to focus on state capacity, institutional development and effective execution in governance.
The lecture follows an inaugural address he delivered on Tuesday as part of the Abia State Leadership Academy Executive Education Series, where he argued that investments in physical infrastructure must be matched by the institutional capacity required to make such assets functional and sustainable.
Speaking on “The State and Those Who Make It Work: Public Service, State Capacity and the Abia Opportunity,” Chidoka challenged political appointees and senior public servants to look beyond individual achievements and build institutions capable of sustaining good governance beyond the tenure of any governor or appointee.
The lecture was attended by Governor Alex Otti, his deputy, the Speaker of the Abia State House of Assembly, members of the State Executive Council, political appointees and senior public servants.
Chidoka defined state capacity as “the ability of a government to convert intention into execution,” stressing that effective government could not be achieved without competent personnel and strong institutions.
Drawing lessons from China, Britain, Singapore and Rwanda, he identified merit and competence, administrative capability, disciplined execution and accountable performance as essential elements of effective governance.
He also challenged the conventional debate around recurrent expenditure, arguing that governments often prioritise visible physical infrastructure while neglecting the operational systems required to make such investments deliver their intended benefits.
“A government may build a police station without the basic materials required to serve citizens, a school without giving inspectors the mobility to supervise it, or a diagnostic laboratory without reliable power. In each case, we have acquired an asset, but not necessarily the capability it was built to provide,” he said.
Chidoka said political appointees and career public servants operated on “two calendars of government”, with political appointees working within short political cycles while career officials provided institutional continuity.
“The task is not to choose one calendar. It is to align them,” he said.
Drawing from his experience at the Federal Road Safety Corps, Chidoka outlined lessons from reforms undertaken during his tenure, including performance measurement, management systems, visible results, accountability, capacity building and the institutionalisation of successful reforms.
“Reform changes what government does. Institutionalisation changes how government behaves after the reformer has gone. State capacity is what remains when individual heroism is no longer required,” he said.
He said the Abia State Leadership Academy should be viewed as part of the broader effort to build leadership capacity and institutional memory, arguing that governments must invest simultaneously in infrastructure, institutions and people.
“An academy is an intention. Its graduates will be the evidence,” he said.
Governor Otti described the lecture as important and relevant, saying his administration’s model was built around merit, execution and the welfare of the people.
He said his administration had abolished state-of-origin considerations in appointments, citing the appointment of a Head of Service from Edo State after a mandatory examination as an example of its emphasis on merit.
Earlier, President of the Abia State Leadership Academy, Prof. Kenneth Kalu, recalled Chidoka’s commitment to public service from their university days, noting that he chose the civil service at a time when banking and the private sector were considered more attractive career options for graduates.
Kalu said the academy was established to help develop the next generation of leaders and place Abia on an enduring path of good governance.
Chidoka urged the state to complement investments in roads, schools and hospitals with the systems, standards, people and institutional memory needed to sustain them.
“Build infrastructure. Build systems. Build standards. Build people. Build memory. Build the state,” he said.
He illustrated the importance of execution with the story of a government commissioning ceremony where everything had been prepared for the cutting of the ribbon except the scissors.
According to him, the missing scissors represented the difference between government intentions and the ability to execute them effectively.
He said the ultimate objective of institutional reform should be to create a system in which such basic details are anticipated and handled as a matter of routine.
Chidoka is expected to deliver the “Abia at 35: The Rise of a New Abia” keynote lecture in Umuahia on Thursday.
The Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership is an independent, non-partisan think tank focused on governance, policy innovation and leadership development in Nigeria.
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