Waziri Adio’s memoir now available in Amazon store, set for public presentation on Dec 11

‘The Arc of the Possible’, memoir of Waziri Adio, former executive secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), is now on sale outside Nigeria via Amazon store.

The book will go sale in Nigerian book stores on December 1, 2021 while the public presentation will take place on Saturday, December 11, the publishers have announced.

Cable Books, in a statement on Monday, said the public presentation, to be chaired by Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, founder and chairman of the Africa Initiative for Governance and former group managing director of Access Bank Plc, will take place at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja.

Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, Muttawalin Borno, will be the chief host while Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, is the book presenter. 

The event will feature a high-level, inter-generational conversation on ‘The Promise and Perils of Public Service in Nigeria’.

On the panel are Yusuf Tuggar, the Nigerian ambassador to Germany and former federal legislator; Ms Yewande Sadiku, former Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC); and Dr Joe Abah, the Country Director of DAI and former Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms.

The conversation will be moderated by Samson Itodo, executive director, Yiaga Africa and convener of the Not Too Young To Run movement.

The pre-order platform in Nigeria went live on the website of Roving Heights, the nation’s most respected bookstore, on October 22.

You can book your pre-order by clicking here.

The paperback goes for N5,000 per copy while the hardcover is N9,000, and pre-orders attract a discount of 10% on cover price.

‘The Arc of the Possible’, which is the first publication of Cable Books, has 25 chapters spanning five sections and almost 300 pages.

Adio chronicles his early days in office as the ES of NEITI, the challenges he faced while trying to stay true to his values, the ideas he tried to bring into his job, the innovations he brought to bear, especially in the policy arena, the things he got done, why and how, and the lessons he believes all who want to serve in public office need to imbibe.

The simple narrative, is influenced by the theoretical frameworks provided by scholars such as Richard Joseph, who wrote extensively on prebendal politics in Nigeria, Peter Ekeh, whose work on two publics in Africa is regarded as a seminal text in political science and sociology, and Mark H. Moore, a Harvard professor whose Strategic Triangle and work on public value shaped Adio’s approach to public administration.

After the expiration of his tenure at NEITI in February this year, Adio proceeded to the University of Oxford as a visiting fellow, mainly to document his experience in leading a government agency in Nigeria, culminating in his memoir.

Adio was educated at the University of Lagos, Columbia University and Harvard University where he earned a BSc in mass communication, an MSc in journalism and a master’s in public administration respectively.

At different times, he also served as a fellow of the Nieman Foundation for Journalists at Harvard University, the Mason Fellowship for Public Policy and Management also at Harvard University, and the Aspen Institute/Africa Leadership Initiative West Africa (ALIWA).

Cable Books, the newly launched book publishing arm of TheCable, is dedicated to enriching the knowledge industry in Nigeria with non-fiction literature.