The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has appointed ‘Laoye Jaiyeola as its new CEO. The new CEO calls on the incoming government of Muhammadu Buhari to cut the cost of governance, plug leakages and embrace a complete privatisation of the downstream sector of the nation’s oil and gas industry.
Following the retirement of Frank Nweke last November as director-general, the board of the NESG announced the appointment of Jaiyeola as its helmsman.
While fielding questions from the media after his announcement as the new NESG CEO, he called on the incoming government to ensure a total deregulation of the nation’s downstream sector of the oil and gas industry as a lasting solution to the intermittent scarcity of petroleum products being experienced around the country.
“We have always been an advocate of complete deregulation all the way and we hope that we will look at it. But more importantly, we should begin to encourage domestic production.
“Let us have domestic refineries. Let us get our refineries privatised and get them to work because if we have sufficient domestic production, we won’t have the problems we are facing now,” Jaiyeola said.
Speaking on the reduction in government revenue, the new NESG CEO urged Buhari to cut overheads and plug leakages in the system as a way to tackle the current economic woes occasioned by the fall in crude oil prices.
He said: “There are two ways you grow revenue; you either create new income sources or reduce expenses. The first thing is that expenses that we don’t have to incur should be cut off. We should look at the leakages and plug them.
“More importantly, we need to grow income. You find out that our economy is reasonably diversified, but by way of generating revenue, it is not growing revenue.”
On his plans as the helmsman for the think-tank, Jaiyeola revealed that NESG would continue to ensure that its recommendations to the government were well-researched.
“Before now, people actually thought that all that the NESG stood for was the three-day summit we do in Abuja, but we are stronger than that. We have robust policy commissions in the various sectors of the economy, where ideas are discussed, distilled and analysed. In fact, they run public dialogues by themselves.
“So, we are going to strengthen this and make sure it is much more factual and research-based so that whatever it is we are recommending to the government is well-researched and well-actualised,” he said.
The new CEO, who brings over 30 years of diverse experience and proven achievements from the financial services industry to his new role, will take up the task of managing the affairs of the private sector funded think-tank, research and policy advocacy group.
Prior to his new appointment, Jaiyeola, known for his commitment to innovative and pragmatic leadership, retired as the managing director of Kakawa Discount House, having served for 20 years.
He also has more than 15 years’ experience in the Summit process, running through the policy commissions, the central and joint planning committees of the annual summits as well as a serving member of the Board NESG until his appointment as CEO.
He is a graduate of Economics from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and holds a master’s degree in Banking and Finance from University of Lagos and a Chartered Banker MBA from Bangor University Wales, United Kingdom.
He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), member, Chartered Institute of Bankers, Scotland, and a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN). Furthermore, he is an alumnus of the Lagos Business School and Harvard Business School.
As a committed and visionary leader, he continues to raise the bar in all the organisations he has been associated with; worth mentioning are his contributions to the Money Market Association of Nigeria (now Financial Markets Dealers Association – FMDA) while he was the president from 2001 to 2003, and until recently, he was a member of the Governing Council of the FMDA.
Olusegun Abisoye
