The National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies – Conception, Operations, and Framework for Repositioning by Tunji Olaopa

Tunji Olaopa, a University of Ibadan trained political scientist, retired Federal Permanent Secretary, is a professor of public administration/public policy and Directing Staff at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos, Nigeria. A Fellow of the Institute for Strategic Management, Nigeria, he is a 2015 recipient of the Nigeria National Productivity Order of Merit Award, the 2018 University of Texas at Austin Thabo Mbeki Award for Public Service and Scholarship and the 2018 University of Ibadan 70th Anniversary Lifetime Achievement Award. He has authored over a dozen other books on governance and public service institutional reform. The inauguration of NIPSS in Nigeria was a unique phenomenon not only because it was a government owned think tank, but essentially because it was one of its kind on the continent. The breath of its mission and objective, as well as the development vision that gave birth to it makes it a unique institutional embodiment of the determination that Africa needs to transform her predicament to possibilities. This volume is an exercise in institutional hope. NIPSS represents a trajectory of where Nigeria as a state is coming from and where it is headed. This book outlines the framework by which the possibility of NIPSS becoming a think-and-do tank—through a focused institutional reform—will also signal the capacity of the Nigerian state to achieve development and progress.