Economic Confidential, April, 2009

PROFILE

DR. Chris Anyanwu: A Legal Scholar in BPE

Dr. Christopher Uloneme Anyanwu, until his appointment as the Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), was the acting head of the Department of Public and Private Law at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Born on December 21, 1962, he hails from Ibeku Olakwo, Enyiogugu in Enyiato local government area of Imo State.

Anyanwu attended Imo (now Abia) State University where he obtained the LL.B Degree in 1987 and University of Lagos where he obtained the LL.M (Masters of Law) in 1990. He is an alumnus of University of Birmingham, United Kingdom where he got his doctorate degree in 2002. His doctoral research was on Comparative Jurisprudence and Constitutionalism.

The BPE boss enrolled as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 1988 and practiced from 1988 to 1993 in the firms of A.A Akinboyede and Co and Oba Femi Ojugbele and Co; both in Otta, Ogun State.

His teaching career started at the Nigerian Law School Lagos. He joined the services of the Council of Legal Education at the Academic Department of the Nigerian Law School, Lagos as a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1993 and taught for up to twelve years in the Law School before joining the Faculty of Law of the University of Nigeria.

While in the services of the Council of Legal Education, Anyanwu obtained the highly competitive British Council/DFID scholarship for postgraduate studies in 1999. Thereafter he also won the Research Scholarship of the Faculty of Law of the University of Birmingham. The BPE Director General disengaged from the Nigerian Law School in 2005 as a Senior Lecturer to join the services of UNN.

He also taught public law at his alma mater—Faculty of Law of University of Birmingham

Between 2000 and 2003, he served as Legal Consultant/Adviser to the then Senate President, Chief Anyim Pius Anyim.

 Anyanwu has written extensively in many fields of law. His works include

“The Jurisprudence of Sovereignty” and “Constitutional Essays” which he co-edited with Dr. M.M. Gidado and Professor Deji Adekunle.

On assumption of office, new DG promised to fast track economic reform and privatization through the spirit of team work and commitment of staff and management.

He acknowledged that having come from the classroom as a teacher of law; he would count on the knowledge, idea and cooperation of the management and staff to achieve the Federal Government’s economic reform agenda.

“I have come here as a greenhorn with a clean slate and a clean mind. I am an academic, lawyer, scholar and teacher who has been thrust here by fate to help achieve through the BPE the economic reform and privatization programme of the Federal Government,” Anyanwu said at his maiden meeting with directors and management staff  of BPE.

The Director General urged the senior management team to give him sound and practice briefings, ideas and guidance on how to attain the BPE’s mandate of economic reform and privatization of moribund public enterprises. In an organization such as BPE involving human interaction, success depends on fellow human beings, he said.

“I cherish people who generate ideas, practical ideas. I will appreciate it if you make ingenuity to feature in your briefings and presentations to me. Don’t restrict yourselves to just your tasks in your briefings; let me have fresh ideas and methods on how we can succeed because if I succeed you have succeeded,” he said.

Anyanwu said he was a fast learner eager to carry out his assignment in BPE. “I have a job to do and I intend to do it creditably,” he said, adding that he bore no grudge or bias against any person and issue.

According to him, “with good motives, positive force and good minds on the part of management and staff of BPE, we shall excel in our mandate of economic reform and privatization agenda of the government.”

Dr. Anyanwu took over from the former Director General, Mrs. Irene Nkechi Chigbue, who served as the boss of the privatisation agency from March 2005 to March 2009.