By Mary Onyia
The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has reaffirmed its commitment to talent development and stronger collaboration with academia through the Executive Industry Immersion Challenge (EIIC) organised in partnership with the Nile Business School, Abuja.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the four-day programme at the corporation’s headquarters in Abuja, the Managing Director and Chief Executive of NDIC, Thompson Oludare Sunday, described the initiative as a strategic response to the widening gap between academia and the business community.
He said the changing global work environment now demands professionals with both academic knowledge and practical understanding of the corporate world.
“The Executive Industry Immersion Challenge has provided the NDIC with the opportunity of a practical platform to expose participants to real-world experience in policy formulation, institutional governance, and public sector management”.
Sunday reiterated the commitment of the NDIC, as a critical financial safety-net institution, to promoting financial system stability and enhancing depositor confidence in the country’s financial system.
He urged participants, who are students of the university’s executive MBA programme, to embrace the values and lessons from the programme as guiding principles for leadership and national development.
The NDIC boss stressed that institutions can only earn public trust when their actions consistently reflect honesty, ethical conduct, good governance and transparency.
Also speaking, the Project Coordinator of the programme for NDIC and Director of Research, Policy and International Relations Department, Ibrahim Aliyu, said the EIIC was deliberately designed as an experiential learning initiative aimed at bridging the gap between theory and industry practice.
In his remarks, the Dean of the Nile Business School, Prof. Hauwa Lamido, represented by a senior faculty member, Dr. Festus Ekechi, said the choice of NDIC for the immersion programme was based on its record of sound corporate governance, professionalism and integrity within the nation’s financial sector.
He added that the school would take deliberate steps to integrate lessons from the programme into its curriculum to ensure participants apply the knowledge gained in their workplaces.