Business
RSG Hosts 2nd Ake Lecture Today
The immediate past Executive President of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission and current Secretary General of the African, Pacific and Carribean Countries (APC), Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas is expected in Port Harcourt, today for the second annual memorial lecture of the late Prof Claude Ake.
The Claude Ake memorial lecture was instituted by the Amaechi-led administration in 2011 in memorial of late Prof Claude Ake, who died in an ADC plane crash in 1996.
Briefing newsmen in Port Harcourt last Wednesday, the chairman of the lecture organising committee, Mr Gogo Levi Charles said that Dr Chambas would be speaking on the topic ‘ Combating the Resources Curse: Strategies for Economic Transformation in a Natural Resources Rich Economy.
Mr Charles, who is also the state commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning said that the topic was chosen in view of the negative effect of a monolithic economy on the development of the state.
He said that the late Prof Ake was before his death, an apostle of economic diversification, contending that the situation was now being felt more than ever before.
The committee chairman also said that the state governor, Rt Hon Chibuike Amaechi would endow a professional chair at the cost of N25million in honour of the deceased.
According to him, other facilitators of the event which holds at the Rivers State House of Assembly auditorium today will include Mrs Efebu Omoibi Okari, Ambassador Nkoyo Toyo and Dr Ukoha Ukiwe of the University of Port Harcourt.