His Excellency Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo (Talban Gombe), OON, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (FCIB), Fellow Nigeria Institute of Management (FNIM), Fellow Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (FCA), Fellow Nigeria Economic Society (FNES), Fellow Chartered Institute of Taxation (FCIT), Fellow Nigerian Association for Educational Administration and Planning (FNAEAP), a successful politician and a seasoned technocrat, was born in 1962. He studied B.Sc. Accounting and graduated with Second Class Upper Division (1985); M.Sc. Economics (1992), PGD Computer Science (1998) and, PhD Accounting at the IgbinediomUniversity Okada, Benin (2013). He is an undisputed well-rounded Economist, a renowned Chartered Accountant, an expert on taxation, forensic auditing, fraud detection, international banking and financial management

He started his work career with Messrs Coopers and Lybrand (now Price Water House Coopers). He worked for some time with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and became the Accountant-General of Gombe State. He was later appointed Accountant-General of the Federation where from he voluntarily retired, contested for Governorship and won with record landslide in 2011. He again contested for a second term and won in 2015. Interestingly, he is the only PDP Governor in the Northern Nigeria that was re-elected to serve for the second term. It is to be noted that even the then incumbent President who contested under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) platform for a second term lost. This is the result of his good governance informed by prudent financial management,
justice, fairness and equity.

During his Civil Service career, His Excellency was a member, CBN Board of Directors; President/Chairman, Accountants-General and Auditors- General Forum of West Africa; Chairman, ECOWAS Audit Committee; Board Member, Extractive Industries Transparency International etc. As Accountant- General of the Federation he is remembered for the introduction of many transparencies centered reforms such as Treasury Single Account, E-payment and Integrated Payroll Personnel Information System (IPPIS), Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) and International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) among others.

As Governor of Gombe State, he has distinguished himself in the areas of education, which he made his first, second and thirdpriority; the provision of infrastructure, healthcare, water supply, environmental degradation control and economic empowerment.

He is the first Governor that created a cogent development plan for Gombe State and went ahead to start implementing the plan thereby putting the State on the right track for sustainable development. He is also the First Governor in contemporary Nigeria to set up a full fledge ministry of Cooperatives with no other appendage of other MDAs. He is the Governor that conceived the marshal plan for the development of the North-east and organized the Northeast Economic Summit (2013) to bring the plan, the North-East Development Initiative, into a regional development blueprint acceptable to all stakeholders, which is to bring about economic growth and sustainably check the security challenges in the Northeast sub region. It is this same plan that the Federal Government now adopted for implementation as Presidential Initiative for North East (PINE).

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen having observed the personal disposition of Talban Gombe to empower the populace through the encouragement of Cooperative activities to become economically viable and productive towards self-reliance and the activities of his administration to issues of grassroots development, we are delighted to present to you His Excellency, Dr. Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, oon, FCIB, FNIM, FCA,, FNES, FCIT, FNAEAP (Talban Gombe), the Governor of Gombe State as weconfer on him today a National Award as the BEST GOVERNOR OF THE YEAR 2018 and a PATRON of the Cooperative Rating & Award Societry of Nigeria (CRASoN)