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By Vera Wisdom-Bassey
The Director, Lagos State Ministry of Town Planning, Mrs. Bello Risikat Bukola, has effusively given thanks to the Almighty God for preserving her life and guiding her through the 34 years she put into Lagos State public service.
While expressing joy for the meritorious and distinguished service she rendered, Bukola who retired recently noted that the grace of God enabled her experience six remarkable decades of impactful living, which produced a lifetime of excellence, dedicated service, resilience, and enduring legacy.
The retirement ceremony was a celebration of a lifetime devoted to professional excellence, innovation, leadership, mentorship, humanitarian service, and nation-building.
One of its major highlights of the event was the official launch of her autobiography, The Story of a Resilient Woman Town Planner Who Built More Than Cities.
The book chronicles her inspiring life journey, professional accomplishments, leadership experiences, challenges, resilience, and enduring contributions to sustainable development and humanity in Lagos State and Nigeria as a whole.
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Another defining moment was the presentation of the Risi-Bello Charity Foundation Legacy Awards, reflecting her lifelong commitment to giving back to society. Through the Foundation, scholarships were awarded to 18 outstanding students selected from the three regions of Nigeria and styling in different academic and professional fields.
Throughout her distinguished career Bello championed several transformative initiatives that contributed significantly to the development of physical planning permit (Lagos-EPP), a partially automated planning permit platform and the foundational framework for the design and development of the Lagos State Electronic Planning Permit processing system (Lagos-EPPPS).
She also contributed to institutional reforms, strategic planning initiatives, policy development, professional mentoring, capacity-building programmes, electronic governance, and innovative approaches aimed at strengthening the administration and delivery of physical planning services in Lagos State.
Her outstanding contributions have earned her numerous honours and recognitions, including the Lagos State Long Service Award; World Bank Group Certificates and letters of Appreciations from 2017 to 2019 consecutively for her contributions to the doing business reforms through the design and deployment of the partially automated plan permit platform as well as the prestigious fellowship of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners.
She has also received several awards of excellence and meritorious service through the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners and Association of Women Town Planners in Nigeria; the African Meritorious Outstanding Nigerian Woman; recognition among the Top 100 most influential women professionals in Construction and Engineering in Nigeria and several other national professional leadership and humanitarian awards, among others.
The memorable occasion brought together an impressive array of distinguished personalities from across Nigeria, including Senator Ganiyu Olaranwaju Solomon.
