APBN Cautions Professional Bodies on Overreliance on Government Patronage

Raheem Akingbolu

A top corporate player and former Managing Director at Cpms, Kadiri Adebayo Adeola has called on professional bodies in Nigeria to begin engage in activities that could further boost the developmental profile of Nigeria and what they could do outside of government rather than putting all their hope in what comes from the government.

Speaking at the 37th Annual General Assembly of the Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria (APBN), held in Lagos recently, Adeola, who spoke on the paper titled, ‘Rethinking Professionalism, Leadership and Development’, said if the society must change for the better, it must start with some individuals who determine the desired values the society should embrace, adopt and commit themselves to these values, and constitute the nucleus from where these values are spread through the larger society.

He stated that rather than focus on service delivery, the nation’s professionals are pre-occupied with complaints about the inadequacies of the government for members.

He therefore, charged members of the association to jettison the entitlement mentality they presently exhibit, and work hard on providing products and services that will delight their customers, clients and the end-users of such offerings.

The guest speaker, who also urged the professionals to exhibit competence and be ready to provide quality services to enable the customers and clients get value for their money, added that besides regulating their members and seeing to their welfare, the essence of professional associations is also to protect the public from incompetent and unethical professionals.

He pointed out that the call had become imperative since many of the nation’s professionals do not exhibit adequate competence and ethics, thereby making it difficult for clients to seek redress in the event of dissatisfaction.

The Guest Speaker also decried the present situation in the country where most professions do not have viable or visible professional associations to regulate them, especially at the vocational and artisan levels

“Even among the elite professions where professional associations exist, the focus of the professional associations is generally on the welfare of their members rather than the quality of service delivery to the public. More emphasis is laid on qualification rather than competence.

“If the hypothesis that the daily living experience of the citizenry derives from interaction with professionals is accepted, then the frustration experienced by the citizenry can be significantly improved if the quality of professional performance improves,” he added.
Adeola charged the nation’s professionals to up their ante by taking on the greater challenges of national development.

Earlier, the President of the association Akinloye O. Oyegbola had expressed the readiness of the nation’s professionals to support governments at the national and sub-national levels. He condemned the obvious preference of governments at the various levels for foreign professionals over the local ones.

He however charged the 30-member associations on the need to enhance professionalism and ensure their clients get value for their money.

Similarly, he expressed the concern of the association over the country’s penchant for borrowing stated that if the loan is for infrastructure, then the loans should payout themselves.
The association also looked at the lingering issue around VAT and suggested that it should be given ample consideration at all levels so as to prevent it from degenerating into a conflagrating crisis. “The issues about duplicity of taxation will depress the economy if not nipped in the bud”, it said.
On AFCFTA, the association believes that Nigeria as the continent’s largest economy, has a huge role to play in making the African Continental Free Trade Agreement deal to work.

“AfCFTA provides free movement of goods and services within the markets of countries that are signatories to the agreement. Signatories to the deal have the opportunity of exploring the continent’s over 1.2billion market. We will like to implore the federal government to encourage Nigerian brands and investors, to leverage this deal to expand their business frontiers and enhance the nation’s economy.”