Encomium
On Saturday, April 11, 2015, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted governorship election in 29 out of the 36 states of the federation. And come May 29, this year, the new elected governors will be sworn-in.
ENCOMIUM Weekly brings you the intimidating profiles of few of these Governors-elect.
Akinwunmi Ambode (born June 14, 1963) is an accountant, an administrator and a public finance management expert. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Brandsmiths Consulting Limited, a firm that specializes in public sector finance management. Ambode was formerly the Accountant-General of Lagos State, Nigeria, and held many sensitive financial positions in the Lagos State government in a 27-year career in the Lagos State Civil Service. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and a Member of the Nigerian Institute of Management. He is the founder of La Roche Leadership Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on developing the next generation of leaders. He is married to Bolanle Patience Ambode (nee Odukomaiya) and they are blessed with children.
Akinwunmi was born on June 14, 1963, at the Epe General Hospital, Epe, Lagos, as the sixth of 10 children. His late father, Festus Akinwale Ambode was a teacher while his mother, Christianah Oluleye Ambode (nee Oresanya) was an entrepreneur who ran a thriving sewing business in her prime. In 1967, when Akin was still four, his father moved to the Mainland of Lagos with the family and continued his teaching career until his death in 1981. Akinwunmi Ambode began his education at St. Jude’s Primary School, Ebutte Meta, Lagos, Nigeria in 1969. In 1974, while still in Primary 5, he sat for the National Common Entrance Examinations and was admitted to Federal Government College, Warri in the same year.
Ambode spent seven years in Warri, where he completed his Ordinary and Advanced Levels and had the distinction of achieving the second best result in all of West Africa in the Higher School Certificate Examinations in 1981. He was on the school’s hockey and cricket teams and was part of the then Bendel State Cricket team while still a student.
Ambode proceeded to University of Lagos, where he studied Accounting, graduating at 21 in 1984. He completed his mandatory National Youth Service Corps year serving with the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sokoto, Sokoto state, where he started his relationship with the public service.
After 27 years in the civil service, Ambode voluntarily retired in August 2012. He founded Brandsmiths Consulting Limited to provide public finance and management consulting services to government at all levels, its parastatals and agencies. Brandsmiths, in collaboration with Price Waterhouse Coopers, has trained government accountants and finance personnel to prepare them for the cut-over to the International Public Sector Accounting System (IPSAS) which is to become effective in 2015.
Ambode is a very active member of the Federal Government College, Warri Old Students Association (FEGOCOWOSA) and is credited with revitalizing the Lagos branch of the association. Ambode was a two-time chairman of the Lagos state branch, and, until recently, was the national president of the association, a position he held for three years. In those three years, he executed key projects in the school in conjunction with the alumni network to improve the education and living standards of the students.
