The Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN Commission) held a technical engagement session with Prof. Ladipo Adamolekun, one of Nigeria’s foremost public administration scholars, during which staff received expert guidance on governance, development, and think tank management.
The session, confirmed by Director-General, Dr. Seye Oyeleye as highly productive, focused on two subject areas central to DAWN Commission’s institutional mandate: governance and development, and the operational principles behind running an effective think tank.
Prof. Adamolekun brings unmatched credentials to such a conversation. He remains the only scholar in the discipline of Public Administration in Nigeria to have received the Nigerian National Order of Merit award in 2005 — the highest national prize for academic and intellectual attainment. His career spans nearly two decades at the World Bank, a stint at the United Nations Secretariat, and over three decades in academia, during which he authored 37 books and monographs on politics and public administration in Africa.
His engagement with DAWN Commission comes on the heels of his latest publication, Reflections on Governance and Development in Nigeria (2025), in which Prof. Adamolekun argues that Nigeria’s over-centralisation of its federal system remains a major obstacle to development, and recommends a 35:65 power-and-resource split in favour of subnational governments. The position closely aligns with DAWN Commission’s long-standing advocacy for fiscal federalism and regional autonomy for the Southwest.
Prof. Adamolekun has maintained a tradition of knowledge-sharing through his private Public Affairs Library and public affairs forums he convened for nearly a decade. Yesterday’s session extended that tradition directly into DAWN Commission’s institutional setting.
Dr. Oyeleye indicated that the engagement would not be a one-off event. The session has opened the door to a structured series of mentorship engagements with several top experts of Southwest extraction, described as a deliberate move to deepen the Commission’s intellectual capacity through regular access to regional thought leaders.