IoD inducts new members

By Seun Ibiyemi

To mark its 40th anniversary, Institute of Directors (IoD) inducted 100 new members into the institute on Thursday, at the Oriental Hotel, Lekki in Lagos.

Four Directors of First Nominees, a Subsidiary of FirstBank Nigeria Ltd., alongside 96 others were inducted.

Seven others were also upgraded into different cadre.

Speaking the Chairman, Board of Bank Directors Association of Nigeria, Mr Mustafa Chike-Obi, urged the new members to focus on people to drive innovation in the institute.

Speaking on the theme; “Smart Boards, Smarter Thinking: Innovating for Improved Board success”, Chike-Obi said that what drives innovation was people.

He said, ” It is the quality of the membership of the organisation that drives innovation.There is nothing else that does it.

“You can read all the books you want, you can do all the work you want, but eventually, the quality of your people is the driving force for innovation.

“So, please, you are all in senior positions or will be very shortly. Focus on your people. Without people all this talk is talk. They will drive your innovation, they will drive your thinking and they’ll make it reality,” he said.

Speaking on behalf of other new members, Mr Raymond Mgbeokwere, thanked the institute for considering them fit and proper, in character and qualification to be members.

He also thanked the founding fathers for the role played in investing and bringing the institute alive and standing.

According to him, some institutes in Nigeria that were established years back could not stand the test of time.

He, therefore, urged the new members to use their role as directors to create a new sense of nationhood in Nigeria.

“We are joined from today and I like to, on behalf of myself and all other new members, thank you very much for admitting us. We are glad to be here.

“But my remark would speak more to what I think is the role of directors. Most of us know what it is in our various sectors and boards, but I would speak to it about nation building.

“Our country is at a stage where we need all hands on deck to create a new life; a new sense of nationhood in this land.

This is because we are opportune to work and play in sectors where we have influence, I think we are able to start the correction and the entrenchment of good governance in where we operate.

“That way, if all of us take this back home, we’re able to assemble a good aggregation of people who are bent on entrenching the right things in this nation,” he said.

Mgbeokwere expressed a strong belief that the new members had the capacity to create a new beginning in the country.

He said, “it’s a privilege to grow at work, or to come out to appointment to sit on boards of organisations, being where strategic decisions have been made, and a sense of direction is being created.

“If we muster a good number of people who are committed to entrenching good corporate governance where we work and where we operate, we can also engage the public sector and government itself in bringing the much desired change that we all desire in this nation.”

He urged them not to see the certificates as one other thing added to their library or as one other thing they all have acquired.

Mgbeokwere advised them to rather think about the sub-committees they signed on to and do the work of introducing thoughts, experiences and things they had garnered over the years.

He also said that this would help to bring about the desired change that the members clamour for.