Hails his Lifetime Achievement Award
The Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arc. Sonny S.T. Echono, has been inducted into the Idoma Hall of Fame. He has also received a Lifetime Achievement Award. The recognition celebrates a career that spans more than three decades of public service, and goodwill messages are already coming in from across the country.

The honour places him among the people the Idoma nation considers its finest. For Echono, it is a homecoming of sorts. He was born on 16 December 1962 in Otukpo, the sociocultural headquarters of the Idoma nationality of Benue State. At home, he is well regarded for a quiet commitment to community development.

Echono’s path to the top of Nigeria’s civil service started on the drawing board. After his National Youth Service in 1986, he briefly worked with the Benue State Housing Agency before joining the Federal Civil Service in January 1987. He started as an architect in the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing.

He then moved steadily through several ministries. He served as Director of Procurement in five key ministries: Defence, Water Resources, Environment, Agriculture and Rural Development, and Power. That grounding in procurement and due process would later become central to his reputation.

Echono’s rise reached its peak in the Permanent Secretary cadre, the highest professional rank in the federal civil service. He was appointed a Permanent Secretary in October 2014. He headed the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development from 2014 to 2015, then the Federal Ministry of Communications from 2015 to 2017. In 2017 he was redeployed to the Federal Ministry of Education.

He spent the closing years of his service there, and he retired in January 2022. That was after 35 years in the service. Supporters often point to one episode from his exit. A group of professionals from Benue State said he was offered an extension of his tenure as Permanent Secretary and politely refused it, insisting on playing by the rules.

His retirement did not mean rest for long. He was appointed the ninth Executive Secretary of TETFund on 18 March 2022. He had earlier served on the fund’s Board of Trustees. The Education Ministry also supervises the agency, so he came to it with a good understanding of how it works.

Under his watch, TETFund has pushed to modernise how it operates. Reforms include digitising operations, moving from paper-based processes to electronic systems, and cutting processing times while improving transparency in project monitoring. The agency is set to unveil more than 400 intervention projects across 271 beneficiary institutions in 2026, covering teaching, learning, research and innovation