Billionaire businessman and Forte Oil Chairman, Mr Femi Otedola, former President of Ghana, HE John Dramani Mahama, John Odigie Oyegun, immediate past National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, have been named as recipients of the 2019 Zik Prize For Leadership.
At a Press Conference in Lagos, Prof Pat Utomi, a member of the Advisory Board of the Public Policy Research and Analysis Centre, PPRAC, organizers of the awards, disclosed that Otedola and Arthur Eze, millionaire businessman won the prize in business leadership just as Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum and Shyngle Wigwe, an elder statesman and veteran broadcaster won the prize in Public Service.
Other winners of the prestigious prize for the year 2018, according to Utomi are, Prof. Oye Ibidapo Obe, a distinguished professor of Systems Engineering and Mr Phillips Oduoza, former group managing director of United Bank for Africa, UBA, and chairman/founder of NOVA Merchant Bank Limited who won the prize in professional leadership, while Bisi Fayemi, wife of Kayode Fayemi, the Ekiti Sate governor, won the prize for humanitarian leadership.
Utomi recalled that The Zik Prize in Leadership Awards was instituted 25 years ago in honour of Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first president of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
He added that Udom Emmanuel and Abubakar Sanni- Bello, governors of Akwa Ibom State and Niger State respectively won the Prize in good governance..
He stated that the aim of the award “ Has always been to encourage and nurture leadership on the African continent”
He clarified that the final list of awardees was arrived at by the advisory board of PPRAC after “an exhaustive appraisal of the nominees in the various award categories.