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• challenges leaders to turn reforms into lasting systems
Founder and Chancellor of the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership and former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, has challenged Abia State to make institutionalisation, rather than individual political performance, the defining legacy of its 35 years of existence.
Chidoka, who is scheduled to deliver the keynote lecture marking the 35th anniversary of Abia State on Thursday, said the state’s progress would ultimately depend on whether it could build institutions capable of sustaining good governance after individual governors and political appointees leave office.
Speaking at the Abia State Leadership Academy Executive Education Series ahead of the anniversary lecture, titled “Abia at 35: The Rise of a New Abia,” Chidoka said the central challenge of governance was not merely having good intentions but developing the capacity to translate those intentions into execution.
He defined state capacity as “the ability of a government to convert intention into execution,” arguing that a high-capacity government could not exist without competent people and effective institutions.
Drawing lessons from China, Britain, Singapore and Rwanda, the former minister identified merit and competence, administrative capability, disciplined execution and accountable performance as critical ingredients for building effective states.
He warned against an approach to development that prioritises the construction of physical infrastructure without investing in the systems and human capacity required to make such assets 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 argued that governments must therefore look beyond the visibility of projects to the institutional systems that sustain them.
According to him, Nigeria’s governance challenge is partly rooted in the failure to reconcile the competing timelines of political leadership and the permanent civil service.
He described the situation as “two calendars of government”—the urgency of the political cycle and the continuity required by the public service.
“The task is not to choose one calendar. It is to align them,” he said.
The former Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps said his experience with institutional reforms at the agency reinforced the importance of performance measurement, management rhythm, visible results, consequences, capability-building and institutionalisation.
He distinguished between reform and institutionalisation, saying while reform changes what government does, institutionalisation determines whether those changes survive the departure of the person who initiated them.
“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.
Chidoka said the Abia State Leadership Academy could play an important role in developing the human capital required to sustain the state’s governance reforms.
He said states needed to invest simultaneously in physical infrastructure, strong institutions and people equipped with competence, character and civic commitment.
“An academy is an intention. Its graduates will be the evidence,” he said.
The former minister also challenged political leaders to ensure that appointments were based on competence rather than considerations that could undermine effective governance.
In his remarks, Governor Alex Otti described Chidoka’s lecture as important and germane to the state’s development, saying his administration’s emerging model was anchored on merit, relentless execution and citizens’ welfare.
Otti cited the abolition of state-of-origin considerations in appointments and the appointment of a Head of Service from Edo State following a mandatory examination process as evidence of his administration’s commitment to merit.
Earlier, President of the Abia State Leadership Academy, Kenneth Kalu, recalled Chidoka’s commitment to public service dating back to their university days.
Kalu said the Academy was established to help prepare the next generation of leaders and place Abia on an irreversible path of good governance.
Chidoka, however, said the ultimate test of the state’s reform efforts would be whether the systems being created could function without constant intervention from political leaders.
He illustrated the point with the story of a government commissioning ceremony in which everything had been prepared for the ribbon-cutting but the scissors could not be found.
For him, the missing scissors represented the gap between government intention and execution.
He said the objective of institutional reform should be to create a government where someone remembers the scissors—not because the governor demanded it or a commissioner shouted, but because effective systems make such lapses unlikely.
As Abia marks 35 years of statehood, Chidoka urged its leaders to pursue a broader development agenda that goes beyond roads, schools and hospitals to include the systems, standards, people and institutional memory needed to sustain those investments.
“Build infrastructure. Build systems. Build standards. Build people. Build memory. Build the state,” he said.
The keynote lecture, “Abia at 35: The Rise of a New Abia,” will be delivered on Thursday, August 27, as part of activities marking 35 years since the creation of Abia State on August 27, 1991.
