Dear Professional Colleague,
On behalf of the Governing Council of our Great Institute, I wish to convey our best wishes to you our distinguished member in appreciation of your concerted efforts in moving the Institute to greater heights as we wrap up an eventful 2020 and shift our momentum to focus on the new calendar year. Please accept our best wishes in the New Year.
I want to sincerely thank you for your contributions in what has been a very peculiar year, for your support especially in ensuring that my investiture was a reality and continuous support for all the activities of the Institute. The success of most of our programmes despite the sudden switch from physical to virtual offerings, occasioned by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, was wholly due to the support and cooperation of members of the Institute for which we are immensely grateful.
We are entering a year that is tethering on the brink of a lot of possibilities – with predicted economic gloom by experts for some part of the year and rising case of insecurity in the country, in addition to the major alarm raised by health authorities about a second wave of the Corona virus. All these does not cheer the mind up a lot neither does it make for happy reading. However, we are a country blessed with lots of intellectual resources, natural resources and resilience in even the most daunting circumstances. Therefore, I would like to state with confidence that the incoming year 2021 will be a good year for all and that it will be a year filled with major victories and celebrations. However, we must all continue to observe the COVID – 19 protocols for safety.
The Insurance Industry is currently facing the challenges of adapting to online activities, recapitalization and the claims arising from the ENDSARS protest amongst others. I want to believe that these are the moments that our well-trained professionals at the helm of affairs were made for.
My tenure is progressing at a time when events have prompted us to change our strategies in line with what is the new normal Our reactions to these disruptions will determine our position today and in the future. These disruptions are here and they have come with new challenges that call for the reinforcement of our professional calling. As highlighted in the theme of my presidency, “Reinforcing Professionalism and Ethics in the New Order”, we can achieve greater successes for our industry and profession if we reinforce professionalism and ethics in reaction to the current needs and demands.
Among other things, this year, the Institute will be ramping up its efforts to get work started on its Victoria Island building. As the umbrella body and unifying platform for all insurance professionals in the industry, it is only proper that the Institute has a structure befitting of the status of the insurance industry and representative of the professionals that make it tick. Therefore, we appeal to all concerned stakeholders to support the Institute in its bid to erect a befitting structure as a home for insurance professionals nationwide.
The Institute belongs to all of us; you and I including all of the many practitioners who wear the toga of Insurance professionals. It is my hope that as stakeholders, we will continue to lift the Institute higher by actively participating to make the Institute’s programmes and activities in 2021 more successful than the previous year.
Thank you for your support in,making the past year memorable. I look forward in anticipation what we will accomplish together this year. I wish you a peaceful and successful year in 2021.
Yours in Service,
Sir Muftau O. Oyegunle ACII, FIIN
President/Chairman of Council Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria
