ACCEPTANCE SPEECH OF THE 53 PRESIDENT OF CHARTERED INSURANCE INSTITUTE OF NIGERIA
Your Excellency, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR
Senator Mukhail Adetokunbo Abiru, FCA, Chairman , Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions
Hon. Ahmadu Usman Jaha, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Insurance and
Actuarial Matters
His Excellency, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, Governor of Lagos State
His Excellency, (Dr.) Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, Governor of Ondo State
Mr. Taiwo Ovedele, Honourable Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy
Mr. Olusegun Ayo Omosehin, FIIN, Commissioner for Insurance
Doyen of Insurance, Olola Olabode F. Ogunlana, ACII, FIIN, OFR
H. H. Ephraim F. Faloughi, OON
The Immediate Past President, Mrs. Yetunde Olubunmi Ilori, FIIN
Past Presidents of our Noble Institute
Elders of our Profession
Distinguished Members of the Governing Council
Representatives of our Esteemed Regulator, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM)
Captains of Industry, Managing Directors and Directors present
Mrs. Adebanke Orimolade and all Family Members
Members of RCCG Victory Chapel, Region 59 Headquarters, Magodo, Lagos State
Members of the Press
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Today, I stand before you with deep humility, profound gratitude, and a solemn weight of responsibility as I accept the honour of serving as the 53 President and Chairman of Council of Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN).
First, I give all glory to Almighty God. It is His grace and His grace alone that makes a moment like this possible. It is a reaffirmation of our shared commitment to professionalism, integrity, and institutional excellence. I am deeply conscious that I step into an office once occupied by giants men and women whose sacrifice, intellect, and character shaped the Institute we proudly celebrate today. To our revered Past Presidents: your legacy is our compass. Leadership in this Institute has never been about status. It has always been about service. John Quincy Adams once said, if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. I carry that standard with me today. To this end, I call on us all to kindly join hands with me on this journey of “Powering the Future of Insurance”.
BUILDING ON E.P.I.C.
I wish to specially acknowledge our Immediate Past President, Mrs. Yetunde Olubunmi Ilori. Madam President, your tenure was visionary and it impacted the industry positively. Your four point agenda: Education, Professionalism, Institutional Recognition and Capacity Building agenda strengthened our intellectual foundation, elevated our standards and expanded our visibility. I do not come to replace that vision. I come to build upon it. Institutional recognition must continue to expand. And capacity building must deepen across Education must remain dynamic. Professionalism must remain uncompromising measurable agenda for transformation; one designed not merely to manage the Institute, but every cadre of membership. This administration will pursue a focused, time-bound and to move it forward.
THE TEB AGENDA – OUR DIRECTION
We have named our agenda TEB: Technology. Enforcement. Building. Three letters. Three commitments. One direction. These are not abstract aspirations. They are structured priorities; each with programs, milestones, accountability mechanisms that this Institute will track, report on, and deliver against throughout this tenure.
T-TECHNOLOGY
Artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of underwriting. Data analytics is redefining how risk is priced. Digital platforms are making insurance accessible to people our industry has never reached. Cyber risk has become one of the fastest-growing insurable classes on the planet. The question is not whether technology will change our profession, it is whether CIIN will lead that change or be led by it.
We will deliver Online Examinations.
The Secretariat has already begun the process of identifying a technology partner for a hybrid CBT examination system. Under this administration, we will complete that journey, giving candidates across every state in Nigeria the ability to sit CIIN examinations without the barriers of geography, logistics or paper. This is not a future ambition. The process has begun. We will finish it.
We will launch the InsurTech Learning Hub.
A digital platform for continuous professional development built around the subjects that define the future of our profession. Artificial intelligence in underwriting. Cyber risk as an Insurable class. Digital distribution models. Embedded insurance. InsurTech regulation. These will not be optional electives. They will be credentialled pathways building on the excellent foundation of the Institute and her Mandatory Continuing Professional Development (MCPD) program that reward professionals who invest in staying ahead.
We will continue and deepen InsurQuest.
The National Insurance Innovation Programme launched under the immediate past president’s tenure is among the most important investments this Institute has made in its tenure. We will make it permanent. We will expand it. And we will connect it formally to the Innovation Lab; creating a full pipeline from idea to implementation, anchored at CIIN executed in partnership with the industry. Nigeria’s next great InsurTech idea and talents would be born inside a CIIN program.
We will modernise how we engage our members
A data-driven member engagement system that is personalised, multi-channel behaviourresponsive will transform how CIIN communicates with its membership base. No more generic broadcasts. Instead; Continuing Professional Development (CPD) nudges when they are most relevant, renewal reminders before a lapse, event invitations tailored to your career stage. And alongside this, we will enhance our payment infrastructure introducing digital channels, automated reconciliation, and instalment options that remove friction from every financial interaction with this Institute.
We will transform our digital presence.
Our website will be imagined from the ground up not as a static information board, but as a living, resource-rich hub: for research, learning, policy, member services and CPD tracking. It will be the front door of a modern, digitally confident CIIN and it will be worthy of the institution it represents. Technology must enhance judgment, not replace it. It must deepen professionalism, not dilute accountability. That is our standard and we will hold to it.
E-ENFORCEMENT: FROM LAW TO LIFE
The Nigeria Insurance Industry Reform Act, NIIRA, represents a historic inflection point for our industry. Recapitalisation. Stronger governance. Improved consumer protection. Renewed market confidence. NIIRA is the most significant piece of insurance legislation this country has produced in a generation. But let me say something plainly, legislation alone does not deepen penetration. Compliance alone does not build trust. Enforcement alone does not change culture. What changes culture is education. What builds trust is evidence; real evidence that insurance works. And what drives penetration is a public that understands, believes in and demands insurance. So yes, we will pursue enforcement. But we will pursue it intelligently, in coalition and with a public alongside us rather than in front of us.
We will launch the InsureNigeria Awareness Campaign.
A national, multi-channel public campaign across television, radio and social media anchored not in product advertising, but in truth. In real stories of real people whose lives were protected by insurance. In the mother whose hospital bill was covered. In the business owner whose fire claim saved his livelihood. In the farmer whose harvest loss was indemnified. These stories exist. We will tell them. And we will tell them loudly, in every language, in every target state.
We will take Insurance into Schools, Professional Bodies
The most durable form of market development is not a campaign. It is a curriculum. We will continue the work of the current administration with state ministries of education to reinstate insurance literacy into secondary and tertiary institutions across our target states, connecting insurance concepts to the real-life scenarios every young Nigerian already knows: life road accidents, house fires, agricultural loss. We are building the next generation from within the education system. We will also develop training curricula for the professionals who purch insurance without fully understanding it, HR managers, procurement officers, le practitioners, risk managers, equipping them to make better decisions for their organisation and their people. Insurance must have a seat at the economic table in infrastructure housing, energy, MSME growth, and agricultural transformation. We will earn that seat by showing up prepared.
B-BUILDING
For decades the completion of a permanent institutional home has been a shared aspiration of this Institute. An Institute of our stature, our history, and our ambition deserves an environment that reflects all three. We cannot continue to speak of world-class standard while operating from facilities that do not match the scale of what we represent. Peter Drucker said: ‘The best way to predict the future is to create it.’ This administration will not merely aspire to a Secretariat. We will build one. We will move deliberately from aspiration to execution with a structured, transparent and financially responsible roadmap. We will mobilise the industry. We will host the Annual CIIN Secretariat Fundraising Gala; a flagship event that brings together the Chief Executives, institutional investors, and senior leaders of this industry not just to celebrate, but to invest. To invest in this Institute. To invest in the profession they have built their careers upon. To invest in the institution that will carry the next generation forward. I am making a personal commitment before this room today, before the end of this tenure, we will break ground on the CIIN permanent Secretariat.
COMMUNITY: MEMORY, MENTORSHIP & THE NEXT GENERATION
There is something this Institute possesses that no regulation can create and no technology replicate. It is the wisdom of those who came before us. In the elders of this profession; Fellows, the founders, the quiet architects of what we have today. There is a library of Cutional knowledge that we are at risk of losing. Not because it is being destroyed but use it is not being documented.
We will launch the CIIN Mentor-Mentee Programme.
mally structured programme with enrolment cycles, matching criteria, engagement ones and accountability pairing our most experienced Fellows and industry elders with erging professionals who will carry this institute into its next chapter.
We will launch the CIIN Podcast – Voices of the Industry.
Knowledge-driven audio and video platform featuring curated conversations with practitioners, regulators and industry elders. Covering regulatory developments, trends, emerging risks and the personal histories of those who built Nigeria’s insurance industry. Episodes will be CPD-credentialled meaning members earn MCPD points, experiences by staying informed. And a dedicated series will document the institutional memory of our most senior figures; preserving, for future generations, what cannot be recovered once it is gone,
SIGNAL OF INTENT: PARTNERSHIP WITH THE FINTECH ECOSYSTEM
Before I move to my closing commitments. I want to mark this moment with an announcement. Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria and the Fintech Association of Nigeria, FintechNGR, are exploring formalizing a strategic partnership through the execution of a Memorandum of Understanding. Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem is one of the most dynamic on the African continent. Its talent, its energy, its appetite for solving hard problems at scale; these are precisely what insurance needs as it enters its next era. And the insurance profession, its knowledge infrastructure, its regulatory expertise, its credibility, is precisely what fintech needs as it moves deeper into embedded finance, digital distribution and risk-based products. Through this partnership, we will build joint programmes. We will create shared talent pipelines that connect FintechNGR’s community to InsurQuest and to e NIA Innovation Lab. We will coordinate our advocacy on NIIRA implementation and surTech regulation at CBN and NAICOM level. We will offer mutual membership benefits that lower the cost of entry into each other’s ecosystems. We will begin, the work of building the infrastructure Nigeria needs for a thriving, technologyenabled, inclusive insurance market. To our partners at FintechNGR: welcome to this journey. We are proud to walk it with you.
LEADERSHIP, VALUES & ACCOUNTABILITY
As President, I commit to transparency in leadership because institutions that cannot be questioned cannot be trusted. I commit to accessibility in engagement because leadership that unavailable is not leadership at all. I commit to integrity without compromise because professionalism that bends under pressure is not professionalism; it is performance. The Technical Subcommittee that has worked so diligently to develop this agenda will continue to operate throughout this tenure not merely as an investiture body, but as a permanent accountability mechanism. Quarterly performance reviews. Published KPI reports. A living implementation framework. We will not manage this agenda from memory. We will manage from metrics. Leadership is temporary. Institutional impact is enduring. I accept this office not as a personal achievement but as a stewardship responsibility. I am a bridge between the legacy we have inherited and the future we are obligated to build.
PERSONAL GRATITUDE
Before I conclude, permit me a moment of personal gratitude. To my late father, Mr. Orimolade – your discipline, your integrity, and your work ethic are the. Though you are not here physically, your principles are in every Orimolade
To my dear mother, Mrs. Ololade Orimolade – your prayers have been my constant anchor. They still are. To my beloved wife, Adebanke: leadership demands time and sacrifice, and you have given both, selflessly, without complaint. Thank you for your partnership. Thank you for your faith. Thank you for being home. To my daughter, Tanitoluwa, and my son, Damilola: you are my daily inspiration. Everything we build today is for the future your generation will inherit. May it be worthy of you. To my family: brothers, sisters, extended family, in-laws, thank you for your love and your solidarity. To the Investiture Committee: from the Chairman, Mr. Tope Smart, to every member – your dedication has been extraordinary. What you have built for this occasion reflects the finest of what this profession can offer.
To the CIIN Secretariat, the Registrar, and all staff: you are the engine of this institution. Nothing runs without you. I am deeply grateful. To everyone, esteemed dignitaries, professional colleagues, family, friends and the Stanbic IBTC Group, who have taken time out of their very busy schedule to attend this program today and have supported me in every way possible, I say a big thank you.
CLOSING
May our values remain strong. May our professionalism remain unwavering. May our collaboration remain purposeful. May this tenure be remembered not for the ceremonies that began it but for the foundations it laid and the lives it changed.
Together, we will build our Secretariat, we will digitise and modernise this great Institute, we will make insurance matter to every Nigerian, we will mentor the generation that will carry the torch further than we ever could.
God bless the Nigerian insurance industry.
God bless Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
