Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu has been named the ”Best Nigerian Governor in Internal Audit Transformation”, by the Institute of Internal Auditors of Nigeria.

The award was in appreciation and recognition of the governor’s significant transformation of the internal audit function in the state.

The award was received by the Deputy Governor, Dr. Kadri Hamzat, on behalf of the governor, at the 2021 National Conference of the Institute of Internal Auditors on Thursday, in Lagos.

Hamzat said that the Sanwo-Olu’s administration considered auditors as strategic partners in the discharge of its responsibilities to the public.

He said that the state government had to re-engineer the service delivery model being used, in the face of changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to him, there was need for internal auditors to re-invent their role, especially in the face of cloud computing where the data centre was outside the country and Artificial Intelligence (AI) controlling operations.

He urged the institute to initiate various training programmes that would enable members to effectively undertake their responsibilities, pointing out that the state administration was committed to professionalism of its workforce.

Earlier, in his remarks, the Chief Executive Officer, Institute of Internal Auditors, Nigeria, Mr Humphrey Okorie, said that the theme of the conference, ‘Navigating uncertainties’ was strategically chosen to get members into the right frame of mind to proffer professional solutions to the effective navigation of the many uncertainties in organisations or places of work.

He said that the conference was another opportunity to bring members to the table by means of the kind of value that they provide to help organisations navigate through the maze of uncertainties.

The Board of Chairman, Mrs Vivian Agu, said that in order to survive in this changing world, internal auditors must occasionally set aside some time to think and project into the future.

Agu called for increased sustainability for the government, organisations, popular thinking and growth of the new frontier of cyberspace.

She said that Nigeria ranked 168 out of 176 countries in the global Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) index of 2020, pointing out that the ESG standards were the key criteria in measuring the performance and sustainability of a nation, especially one that was in dire need of foreign investors.