n Nigeria, awards and prizes are a dime a dozen. For the right amount you can get some fly-by-night operation to hang some cheap medallion around your neck. Your ego may be sated, and self-esteem boosted for a couple of hours, but the discerning are hardly ever fooled.
But sometimes the deserving do get their day in the sun. Yesterday at the Civic Centre, Ozumba Mbadiwe Road, Victoria Island, the Public Policy Research and Analysis Centre (PPRAC) held the 2013 edition of the Zik Leadership Award in Excellence – doling out a string of awards to notable Nigerians.
Among those honoured this year were Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal; Minister of Housing, Land and Urban Development, Ms Ama Pepple; Governors Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano) and Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti).
Others are Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Chief Festus Odimegwu and Chief Executive Officer, Fidelity Bank Plc, Reginald Ihejiahi.
The Zik Prize in Leadership set up in 1994 by PPRAC is an annual affair in honour of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, first President of Nigeria. It is meant to encourage patriotic leadership in Nigerians, Africans and black people all over the world.
Past recipients of the prize in Political Leadership include former President J.J. Rawlings (Ghana, 1995), President Julius Nyerere (Tanzania, 1997), Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim (Tanzania, 1998), President Sam Nujoma (Namibia, 1999) and former South African President Nelson Mandela (2000).
With such a stellar cast of past awardees, this year’s honourees are certainly in privileged company. The 2013 group is packed with political office holders – save two, Odimegwu and Ihejiahi – who are better known for their exploits in the business world.
As part of the explanatory notes for his award, Ihejiahi is said to have distinguished himself in professional leadership at a time of serious crisis in the financial sector – a period which betrayed many organisations as lacking in professionalism and exhibiting performance gaps in sound corporate governance.
Anyone familiar with the recent history of the banking sector in Nigeria will not argue with that assessment. Indeed, it has been a period of intense change and upheaval – beginning with the Professor Chukwuma Soludo consolidation phase to the radical reforms introduced by the current Central Bank Governor, Lamido Sanusi.
Just as the banking landscape was being transformed, many leaders in the top echelons of some the country’s top financial institutions were toppled from their rarified perches. Worse still, some who were once celebrated as icons turned villains overnight, their reputations sullied irreparably. Some are still undergoing trials in court.
It is against this background of turmoil, that Ihejiahi drove an unlikely institution to emerge as one of the initial 25 success stories of the Soludo consolidation process. Were he to have stopped there it still would have been considered a notable achievement.
However, in close to 10 years that he has led Fidelity Bank, he has transformed what was a puny 22-branch outfit in February 2004, into a brawny competitor boasting as many as 205 branches today. Recently, the bank successfully concluded a USD300million International Eurobond issue – something that will go down as one of the signal achievements of his tenure. Only three Nigerian banks have managed this thus far.
Under his leadership Fidelity was named the Most Socially Responsible Bank in Africa in 2008 during the World Bank annual meetings in Washington DC, and for the past seven years has been a consistent winner at the Social Enterprise Reports and Awards (SERA).
Banks love to brag about how much they give back out of their stupendous profits. So it is no surprise that Ihejiahi has used his position as CEO to drive his institution’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Fidelity supports causes for the environment through cooperation with the Nigeria Conservation Foundation (NCF) and environmental beautification, in partnership with state governments.
He is also a noted arts enthusiast. He is not only a connoisseur; he is an avid collector of works of art. His interest in literature has clearly rubbed off on the group. Fidelity has sponsored readings and training workshops for budding writers. A couple of those seminars have been led by notable writers like the award-winning Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and the Kenyan, Binyavanga Wainaina.
It is often said a company cannot climb higher than its leadership: pedestrian leadership will always result in a mediocre establishment. Ihejiahi presides over a bank that is not noted for its flashy ways. Rather he has built an institution fashioned in the more conservative traditions of British banking.
That may be down to the fact that the man himself is essentially a conservative person. Those who know him say both of his parents were teachers and they instilled a prudent trait in him. The family was often on the move from city to city because of regular transfers. He finally had a measure of schooling stability when he enrolled as a boarding student at the elite Government College, Umuahia.
Aside conservative, other words that have been used to describe Ihejiahi is brilliant. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accountancy from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he was a Mobil Oil Undergraduate Scholar. He also holds a masters degree in Finance & Accounting from the famous London School of Economics (LSE), University of London and a doctorate degree in Business Administration (Honoris Causa) from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (FCCA) UK, and of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN).
Many attribute his skillful management of the tripartite marriage between Fidelity, the defunct Manny Bank and FSB Bank, to his personal integrity and goodwill built over three decades working in banking.
That trust is what encouraged many high net-worth individuals to invest in the young institution – putting Fidelity in a strong enough position to gobble up the two other banks which, at that point, were much bigger than it.
Going by CBN regulations which cap tenure for bank managing directors at 10 years, Ihejiahi should be approaching the end of his time as CEO of Fidelity having been appointed in 2004. Aside leaving a durable institution whose place in the business landscape is assured, it is fitting that one of the more self-effacing business leaders and achievers in Nigeria is being recognised through the Zik Leadership Award, for doing something significant for his country.