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Sonny Echono: A Workaholic At 62

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Call him a double-barrelled personality and you will not be wrong. He is both an accomplished technocrat, and a distinguished bureaucrat to boot. How else would one describe a professional architect of four full decades, who has also spent his en­tire working life in the public ser­vice? He rose to the very top of the leadership of the national umbrella body of his primary profession, and his occupation, respectively. He was national President of the Nigerian Institute of Architects, (NIA). He equally coursed all the way in the civil service to become a Permanent Secretary and a long-serving one. These attainments were bagged strictly on merit. His enterprise has not gone unnoticed as he has been deservedly decorated by the highest honours of his professional calling where he is a Fellow. He has also received national garlands in recognition of his good work, nota­bly that of the Officer of the Order of the Niger, (OON). He retired upon grossing 35 memorable years in service, back in 2021. He was bare­ly catching his breath when duty beckoned him to return to avail the nation his variegated experiences in yet another capacity. This has been the story of his life.

VSonny Echono: A Workaholic At 62

Several decades in the ovens and furnaces of the public service have invested him with the ar­chetypal reticence of a prototype bureaucrat. They are not given to much talk, the essential credo of his lifelong profession requiring public officers like him being “to be seen and not to be heard.” He is exceptionally, comprehensively grounded as a public servant who traversed nearly a dozen minis­tries, departments and agencies, (MDAs), in a most eventful and in­sightful career. What can be more all-encompassing and enriching with regards to cognate working experience than when an individ­ual straddles the ministries of Works and Housing, Defence, Wa­ter Resources, Agriculture, Power, Communications and Education, at the highest levels?

VSonny Echono: A Workaholic At 62

With the bifurcation of the erstwhile Ministry of Works and Housing, and the excavation of a “Ministry of Livestock” out of the extant Ministry of Agriculture, he can fittingly be credited with many more service addresses. And all of these preclude the lengthy list of national and international ad hoc responsibilities which garnish his cumulative experiential scope. He was in the earliest generation of civil servants who, with the return of democracy in 1999, was groomed in “Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence.” This derived from the determination of the new regime to introduce more transparency in public procurement processes. He “evangelised” this credo in all his official bus stops.

VSonny Echono: A Workaholic At 62

It is Sonny Togo Echono’s birth­day, Monday, December 16, 2024. When he’s addressed by the combi­nation of the initials from his first two names, “ST,” he knows you come from years and decades back with him. It is supposedly a special day in the eyes of his family, col­leagues, subordinates and friends. Customised greeting cards arro­gate a section of his office at the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, (TETFUND) headquarters in Abu­ja, to themselves. For the Executive Secretary of the organisation, how­ever, the day is a regular working day like every other. And there was plenty of work to be done. He pre­fers to operate from the conference table in a corner of his office which enables him ease of access to files and documents placed before him. He’s also able, with despatch, to attend to staff, who desires his of­ficial guidance, as he looks up from papers placed before him from time to time. There’s no time for a meal as yet but he tosses a few nuts in his mouth from time to time.

VSonny Echono: A Workaholic At 62

TETFUND was established in 1993, and was initially christened the Education Trust Fund, (ETF). It is funded majorly from a two per cent tax on the assessable profits of companies registered in Nigeria. It was at inception, targeted to arrest the rot and degeneration in educa­tional infrastructure, arising from long periods of neglect and miserly resource allocation. It was rechris­tened to its present nomenclature during the administration of Pres­ident Goodluck Jonathan in 2011. TETFUND administers, appro­priates and oversees resources so aggregated for the rehabilitation, restoration and consolidation of tertiary education in the country. It avails capital for educational facil­ities and infrastructure, including essential physical infrastructure for instruction and learning. TET­FUND also supports research and development as well as the train­ing and advancement of academ­ics, among other segments of its responsibilities.

VSonny Echono: A Workaholic At 62

In a little over two years at the helm, Echono has striven to insti­tute a new work ethic in TETFUND to ensure that it achieves its foun­dation mandate, especially against the backdrop of challenging eco­nomic headwinds. He has intro­duced sweeping reforms which have upset the pre-existing apple cart in several ways. Echono has been very fastidious on issues of due process and effective service delivery. The system he inherit­ed was fraught with entrenched power blocs which determined the running of the organisation to the detriment of its core vision. Echono has been uncompromising in his insistence that the institu­tion must be run strictly accord­ing to the books. This is one resolve which was bound to unsettle the “indigenes and landlords” within, and their external allies, who hith­erto, construed the organisation as a potential “automated teller ma­chine,” (ATM).

Echono clarifies: “There were cartels in charge of TETFUND projects. They collaborated with all manner of political leaders to come to the organisation to collect ‘special intervention projects,’ as it is referred to. There were no de­fined modalities in place, which enhanced operational opacity.” Speaking further, Echono notes: “When I was asked to come here, I was given a very clear mandate to clean up this place and I’m doing just that. The system is the better for it because we have substantial­ly minimised waste and our stake­holders acknowledge this much.” A confident Echono said he had indeed invited the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission, (ICPC), to check through the operations of the organisation: “I invited the ICPC to come and inspect our systems. They’ve visited us twice and are satisfied with how we are straightening up the system.”

VSonny Echono: A Workaholic At 62

Echono is aware that he has stepped on toes while trying to do the right thing. He insists there is no backing down on his mission. His words: “I’ve made enemies on this job. But we have a duty as peo­ple privileged to serve, to help in salvaging our country.” Discreet findings indeed reveal that there are internal mumblers and exter­nal discontents on his case. There are those who supposedly feel enti­tled to a perpetuation of their term in office. There are also as those who fancy being gifted the leader­ship of the organisation as polit­ical gratification. Some of them, reportedly, had begun to make reas­suring commitments to friends and associates, thereby pre-empting their consideration for the job and the express approval of the Pres­ident. There are also suggestions about internal saboteurs who are in the habit of trading in classified information concerning the organ­isation. Some of them are indeed said to be politically exposed per­sons, fantasising about deploying the organisation for the advance­ment of their vaunting political aspirations.

While Echono is contending with this hydra, a certain Emeka Marcel Nweke has, allgededly, cre­ated a Facebook page with Echo­no’s name to defraud members of the public. Benneth Igwe, the Assistant Inspector General of Police, (AIG) in-charge of Zone 7 Police Command Headquarters, on Tuesday December 17, 2024, disclosed this to newsmen. Echono it was who wrote a petition to the police about “criminal conspiracy, impersonation, fraud, false repre­sentation, cyberstalking, obtaining money by false pretence and threat to life,” upon which the police act­ed. Nweke was reportedly tracked to Awada, Anambra State and was found, allegedly, to have fleeced un­suspecting members of the public of over N10 million in the month of August 2024, alone. Such are the issues he’s multitasking to address.

VSonny Echono: A Workaholic At 62

Echono’s enterprise thus far, has accorded renewed respect and visi­bility to TETFUND. More and more high profile institutions and indi­viduals, home-based and from the diaspora, regularly engage with the organisation in recent times to discuss partnerships. These in­clude even the military establish­ment which is in the business of revolving tune-ups for its human capacity, consistent with global dynamics. The multidimensional Echono is equally very busy on lec­ture circuits these days, regularly called upon to chair, speak or to de­liver papers at various events. His trophy-chest brims with glittering medals, gleaming plaques, glossy trophies and beaming mementos, awarded to him by several groups and associations, through the years. These acknowledgements are for inimitable altruism, selfless leadership and exemplary corpo­rate governance, despite the odds.

*Dr Olusunle, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors (FANA), is an Ad­junct Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Abuja

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