The Fourth edition of the BrandiQ Symposium earlier slated to hold on Wednesday, November 23, 2016 has been shifted to a new date planned for the first quarter of 2017. The date will soon be announced.
According to Desmond Ekeh, the Publisher, BrandiQ Magazine, the postponement is occasioned by genuine demands by a flurry of stakeholders who have made requests for their position papers to be accommodated at the Symposium. They have argued that, the weight of the topic to be discussed, and the caliber of the Special Guest Speaker and the Discussants, demand that the scale of participation be enlarged to accommodate more shades of opinions and representatives.
The theme for this edition is: Brand Nigeria @ 56: ‘New Ideas to Make Our Union Work’.
Speaking further, Mr. Ekeh said that, “This theme is informed by the fact that, right now, our country Nigeria is faced with obvious socio-economic and political challenges. This has affected our national lives in all and every way imaginable. People are struggling to feed and businesses are stressed. The state of infrastructure, education, health and scale of unemployment, especially among the youths, is a major concern”.
“We do not think that bemoaning the situation will help; rather, lending a helping hand would do”.
He added that, “The tenets of democracy recommend that the leading lights of the society take the initiative to mobilize and galvanize the citizenry to effective and robust discussion of, and open deliberation on, all issues that concern the community for the common good.
Deliberation, discussion, consensus building, negotiations, compromise and debates remain the foundation of liberal democracy! In recognition of this, every year since 2013, BrandiQ magazine stages a public discussion forum, just immediately after the independence celebration, to discuss a topical issue affecting the health of the Nigerian state”.
It would be recalled that, the 2015 edition, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, former Minister of Education, who was the special guest speaker discussed the theme/topic: ‘Public Accountability, Corporate Governance and Responsible Citizenship’.
In this editon, “we have decided to examine the state of our Union with the aim to fashion out new ideas to make it work. The BrandiQ Editorial Board members in partnership with the BrandiQ Symposium Organising Committee have assembled a quality team of speakers to engage Nigerians and the government on the issue”, he concluded.
