Businessman and Chairman of The Dome Entertainment Center in Abuja, Dr. Obiora Okonkwo, will on May 15 deliver a lecture at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN).

Dr. Okonkwo, who would be discussing ‘The Value of Diversity: Restructuring To Save Nigeria’, follows the footsteps of the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, among many professionals and academics who had honoured the invitation to lecture on selected topics.

A letter nominating Dr. Okonkwo as the 2018 laureate and jointly signed by Dean of the Faculty of Social Science, Prof. Hilary Achunike, a priest of the Catholic Church, and Chairman of the Planning Committee, Prof. P-J Ezeh, stated that “this year’s edition falls on the 15th of May and the planning committee have unanimously voted you as the laureate”.

“We can think of no person that is more suited for the position than your eminent self,” the letter further reads.

It also stated that the faculty was in “admiration of your exemplary and pace-setting records in Nigeria’s business sector. It is not often that such accomplishments are accompanied by a depth of knowledge and soundness of learning that is equally uncommon”.

Being one of the largest social science faculties in Nigeria, the letter said the faculty has a culture of a “special public lecture programme where we invite such exceptional personages so that they may speak to the enlightenment of the larger society”.

Okonkwo, holds a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Political Science, with distinction, from the Russian Academy of Science, Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Moscow. He earned a Master of Science Degree in Economics, also with distinction, from the Russian Peoples Friendship University in Moscow. He earned his first degree in economics, with first class, from the Russian Peoples Friendship University in Moscow.

He had his early education in Nigeria obtaining his West African Schools Certificate from the Boys High School, Onitsha in Anambra state and his First School Leaving Certificate from Crowther Memorial Grammar School, also in Onitsha, Anambra State.

His thesis on ‘The Role of Nigeria Civil Society in Transition to Civil Rule’ earned him a PhD in 1999 and became a reference study at the Russian Academy of Science, Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow. His Master’s Degree thesis was on Corporate Strategic Planning and Methods, published in Moscow in 1994. He also published Engaging the Nigerian Diaspora for National Development in New York, 2005, with another in 2007 titled Turning the Nigerian Brain Drain into Brain Gain, which was published in Accra, Ghana in 2007. In 2013, he published another work titled Citizen Election and Expectation: The Role of Religious Groups in Politics.

Update news