The event had Professor(Mrs) P. K Makinwa-Adebusoye,NNOM,OON,FSSA as the Keynote Speaker with HRH Shehu Abubakar Ibn Umar Garba El-Kanemi,the Shehu of Borno as the Royal Father of the Day while Professor Shekarau Yakubu Aku,FNSE,FSESN,FAEng who is the Chairman of the Governing Board of the Nigerian National Merit Award as the host.

The high point of the opening interactive session centered on the significance of home grown think tanks and agenda setting for the purpose and direction of driving development priorities as against foreign imposed think tanks who hardly take cognizance nor appreciate our inward and common peculiarities as a developing society in setting agenda for national growth and development. In another way,the central debate here is that the excessive infiltration and over dependence on foreign oriented and externally controlled development plans,policies and programmes has been a major challenge to Nigeria’s growth and development opportunities.