By Nwachukwu Godson

On Tuesday, July 15 , 2024, the new Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer, MD/CEO, of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF, Oluwaseun Faleye, assumed duties with a promise to reform and leave the agency better than he met it. Faleye, an accomplished legal practitioner, corporate finance expert and public intellectual who arrived the headquarters of the agency in the company of the equally newly appointed Executive Director, Operations, EDOs, Mojisolaoluwa Alli-Macaulay was received by the Executive Director, of Administration, EDA, Prof. G.O.C Okenwa and that of Finance and Investment, EDFI, Babatunde Adegoke.

The MD/CEO also accompanied by his friends and associates was taken round the 19 departments in the Fund for familiarization. By 1 pm, Faleye, was ushered into his office , from where he joined the already waiting heads of departments for an inaugural meeting which provided a platform for a formal handover. All the 12 regional heads of the agency joined the meeting through zoom while the entire staff nationwide were enjoined to watch the live proceedings from the NSITF social media handles.

The meeting had been anticipated with anxiety as the NSITF has been badgered by instability and high management turnover. Between 2017 to 2024, the Fund has had three MD/CEOs and one acting MD/CEO . And each came with its disruptions.

The agency has also been familiar with uncomplimentary media headlines until lately when the immediate past MD/CEO , Maureen Allagoa, took extra measures to set a fresh media agenda , frontloading and inviting insights to the lofty ideals of the Employees Compensation Scheme, ECS, and the consistent efforts being made to take its benefits to the doorstep of all workers.

Addressing the meeting, the new MD/CEO, with an expansive public and corporate service experience said: “My mission in this organization is to join the existing stakeholders to build a much more sustainable organization. I am new and yet to know all the issues and find solutions to them but if we put our heads together, we shall be able to build a much more vibrant NSITF that can deliver its mandate to its key stakeholders especially the Nigerian workers and employers as well as the staff of the fund.

“Please bear in mind that my intention is to leave this organization much better than I met it today. It is a worthwhile dream, given the impact we have in the generality of the world of work.”

He hinted that his administration would carry out organizational restructuring to prim the NSITF for operational efficiency, noting that “but of course, at the core of this is some level of organizational restructuring. I have no doubt about that. What that organizational restructuring will be, I don’t know. We need to engage deeply before one can say that. The essence of that restructuring is to create some level of efficiency in our service delivery.”

He also said he would look at the detailed needs assessment of each department and unit with a view to addressing them, urging all staff members to work harder as measures would be taken to enhance their welfare and ease duties, commending the staff at the far frontiers across the nation for driving the ECS to the ends of the nation. In what came as a clear departure from the past, an act which brought to the fore, Faleye’s urbane predilection, he expressed kind words for his predecessor, Maureen Allagoa.

“I want to use this opportunity to thank the former MD/CEO for being gracious enough to provide a handover note even though she was not able to present it physically. I have spoken to her to indicate that irrespective of the manner of exit, I would have appreciated an opportunity to formally meet and exchange this document and information and of course thank her for her service to the organization. I hope we will be able to do that in the coming days because irrespective of sentiments, she has given time and effort to lead the organization and that should be applauded and appreciated.”This polished, no-foe disposition of the MD/CEO came in tandem with what the EDA had told the staff in a harbinger meeting a day before.

According to him, “The new MD/CEO has asked me to tell you that his appointment is not a military coup and that the growing anxiety which attended such exercise in the past should be deescalated.”

If the soothing words of the MD/CEO was not enough, the motherly disposition of the new EDOs, capped it all. Alli-Macaulay, a consummate former lawmaker and lawyer, deploying a legal maxim said, “what is necessary is lawful. It is necessary to meet one another, see each other’s faces, also encourage one another, raise each other’s hope and also relax anxiety.”

She further assured of a smooth working relationship between the new executive and other stakeholders of the fund. That clause, “raise each other’s hope and relax anxiety” has a deeper meaning. It is a metaphor interpreted by staff to mean zero exaction of prices. It is in deed a new day.

Earlier, the EDFI, a chartered accountant and former long standing staff of the agency, commended the choice of the new MD/CEO , urging him to use his links in the political system to accelerate the reform of the agency. The lot also fell on Adegoke to present the handover note submitted by the former MD/CEO to Faleye.

The EDA, a seasoned banker and academic, similarly compared the new administration to light, declaring that the NSITF has received the much needed illumination to head in a better direction. He commended the sterling qualities of both the new MD/CEO and the EDOs, adding that President Tinubu could not have made a better choice. All eyes are now on Falaye “to be or not to be that is the question” to quote Shakespeare in Hamlet.

Faleye’s glittering pedigree says “to be.” The NSITF has multiple issues and the challenge is tough but Faleye is certainly equal to the task as he acknowledged, “I know this responsibility is a challenge but it is a challenge I am competent enough to handle efficiently.”

The outgone MD/CEO had bestrode the challenges and made significant gains in repositioning the agencies even with unceasing cascade of distractions, including domestic staff union restiveness.

But Faleye has more going for him. If Allagoa strived to reform the agency along the 8-Point Agenda of the Tinubu administration, here is Faleye who comes from the very conclave that birthed the agenda.

His leverage and background make him a tough prey to intimidation or blackmail, internal or external. What’s more? He has no baggage, inherited no enemy, not hunted by real or imagined enemies, and above all, he has no worries of the scares of the dim past or fears of a nebulous future arising from tenure insecurity that has hunted his predecessors. Faleye looks most assured to plan both long and short term and well equipped to reposition the NSITF as the apex social security agency.

Nwachukwu Godson is General Manager, Corporate Affairs, NSITF