2025 AIG Public Leaders Programme

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KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, IMMEDIATE PAST VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AT THE CLOSING OF THE 2025 AIG PUBLIC LEADERS PROGRAMME IN ABUJA, ON THE 6TH OF MARCH, 2025

PROTOCOLS

First, let me express my sincere gratitude to the co-founders of The Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation, the co-sponsor of the AIG Public Leaders Programme, Ufovwe Aig-Imoukhuede and Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, for the very kind invitation to deliver these keynote remarks.

The AIG Public Leaders Programme has become far more than a contribution to the development of Nigeria and Africa’s public service, it has emerged as a game-changing initiative for building capacity within the Civil Service, both locally and across the continent.

The Foundation’s collaboration with the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford over the past two years has produced four cohorts of exceptional public sector leaders. These individuals have been equipped with world-class skills designed to tackle the complex and rapidly evolving governance challenges today. As you may have heard, I have been privileged to accompany the AIG Public Leaders Programme on this journey, including delivering the keynote address to the inaugural cohort in March 2022. I must say that I am extremely proud of the excellent work that has been done so far.

For most of my adult life, I have served as a public servant, whether as a law lecturer at Federal and State Universities, as an Adviser to the Federal Attorney General, a United Nations staff member, a State Attorney General, or later as Vice President and Acting President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Throughout these experiences, I have arrived at a firm conclusion: the Civil Service holds the key to a nation’s success.

This is not because public servants are inherently special, but because, by the very design of modern society, government is the legal and accepted vehicle that exists to make life better for its people. The people entrust the government, which includes the Executive, Judiciary, Legislature, and the public service that supports them with the authority to initiate and implement policies, regulate economic and social activities, maintain law and order, deliver justice, and provide public goods. Public servants, in turn, have the privilege and responsibility to serve, ensuring that government functions efficiently and effectively.

When public services are executed by well-trained, well-resourced, and motivated professionals, economies thrive, businesses grow, jobs are created and lives improve.

But where the public service is weak, disorganized, or self-serving, progress stalls, opportunities are lost and the economy suffers. Nigeria offers many examples of how our Civil Service has driven national progress. Consider the National Development Plans of the 1960s and 1980s, the supervision of the construction of four refineries, the last three built within 10 years and nearly 5,000 kilometres of pipelines, or our globally acclaimed responses to the Ebola and COVID-19 outbreaks all steered by dedicated public servants and our exceptional public health professionals.

More recently, large-scale programmes such as the privatization of public assets, the school feeding initiative serving 9.6 million children daily by 2019, and the digital management of the N-Power programme, recruiting, deploying workers across all local governments, and paying them promptly, are testaments to what an effective public service can achieve.

The same public service alongside the Bank of Industry delivered the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) and the award-winning Growth Platform. The Growth Platform launched the largest government-run microcredit scheme in Africa using the so-called human banks, agents equipped with mobile technology that enabled them to capture beneficiary data quickly and easily in the field and manage beneficiaries throughout their credit or financial-services journey. However, when public service delivery breaks down, the consequences ripple across the economy.

I recall, as Attorney General of Lagos State, reading a report on the housing shortage in the city. One major cause was the slow resolution of landlord-tenant disputes in the magistrate courts which discouraged investment in rental properties. Tenants could occupy homes without paying rent for years while cases dragged on in the courts. The result was that those who would have invested in low to middle-level houses for rent, invested in stocks and shares and other things. But this particular story ended well because the solution was also designed by the public service.

The Ministry of Justice in Lagos State created Citizens Mediation Centres, trained mediators who were at first lawyers in the Ministry of Justice. They successfully concluded over 8,000 cases annually, compared to fewer than 2,000 in the magistrate courts.

Clearly, when public systems fail, everyone suffers, but when the public service sees itself as a public resource to solve problems, the possibilities for transformational change are limitless.

Consider again the daily challenges entrepreneurs face when trying to register companies, secure certifications, or obtain necessary approvals. Every time we delay their progress, telling them to come back next week, instead of resolving issues today, we are not just postponing one person’s prosperity, we are postponing opportunities for many others whose livelihoods depend on that business succeeding. In short, when public officers become an obstacle, they directly undermine national prosperity.

In today’s volatile, uncertain, and complex global environment, governments and the services they provide must be agile, innovative, and scalable. Effective policy-making must respond to evolving realities. Innovation is no longer optional; it is a core function of governance, so regulatory frameworks must continuously respond to new developments to unlock opportunities while protecting the public interest. An effective public service today must also see the private sector as a crucial partner. The public service exists to facilitate enterprise and support the private sector. This fact is the fundament of a dynamic and productive relationship between the public and private sectors in our nations.

In 2016, for instance, as young entrepreneurs in Nigeria sought to build digital payment platforms, outdated regulations recognized only traditional banks. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), however, responded creatively, establishing the Payment Service Provider (PSP) License Framework. This categorized licenses into four broad groups:

1. Switching and Processing, license for backbone infrastructure for payment processing companies like Interswitch, Unified Payment Services Ltd, E-Transact, etc.

2. Mobile Money Operations (MMO) license for digital wallets and mobile payments, so companies like Paga, Opay, Kuda Microfinance Banks, Palmpay etc., were able to birth and grow their businesses.

3. Payment Solution Services (PSS) covering the Super License which covers agent network management for financial inclusion, like First Monie agents.

4. They also created the Regulatory Sandbox licenses for innovators testing new products under CBN supervision.

These rules developed by public servants working with industry players enabled a new generation of FinTech companies, fostering a revolution that has produced five or six unicorns companies now valued at over $1 billion each.

Today, Nigeria is recognized as the leading FinTech hub in Africa, attracting major global investments and partnerships, all because public servants worked with industry to develop forward-thinking solutions. This spirit of innovation is precisely why the AIG Public Leaders Programme is so vital, it empowers participants to imagine new possibilities, test bold ideas, and design practical solutions. It instils the understanding that real change begins with imagination, followed by the disciplined execution of ideas.

I have been inspired by the remarkable projects emerging from this programme: from a project on leveraging mobile technology to expanding mental health services to another developing AI-powered knowledge management tools, another creating employee feedback platforms, yet another digitizing government processes, and one designing frameworks to address workplace sexual harassment.

Each of these innovations began as a simple idea but has the potential to profoundly transform public service delivery. I think from here on, you must see yourselves as inventors, not of devices or machines, you are Public Service Scientists. Just as technology scientists engineer groundbreaking technologies, you are inventors of bold new systems and processes that transform how vital public goods and services reach millions. Technology Scientists create the products that power our daily lives, Public Service Scientists create the systems that protect them, ensuring that health, safety, education, and opportunity reach every corner of society, not as a privilege, but as a promise.

In any event, I am convinced that the way you have been challenged in these past six months to solve real problems through leadership, creativity, and innovation, your approach to public service will never be the same. And this is the essence of transformative leadership; seeing problems not as obstacles, but as opportunities to build the future we desire.

As you continue in your respective roles, I encourage you to carry this mindset forward. The prosperity of our nations depends on the diligence, integrity, vision and creativity of its public servants. With programmes like the AIG Public Leaders Programme nurturing such talent, I am optimistic about the future of public service in Nigeria and across Africa.

Thank you.