Antonia Beri: Safety Summit to Address Reduction in Risks on Investment

Antonia Beri is the Lead Consultant and Strategist at Safety Consultants and Solution Providers Limited. With recent outbreaks of tanker and other fires across the country, her company is organising a summit to address these incidents and look at ways to mitigate them. She spoke to Raheem Akingbolu on the coming summit and why Nigeria must take safety on investments more serious.

What is your take on recent tanker fire outbreaks across the country; especially in Lagos and the federal capital Abuja?

I can tell you that these incidents are quite avoidable or do I say reduced to the barest minimum if we had imbibed the habit of doing things the way they are supposed to be done. And this is involving professionals and observing regulations as directed by regulatory agencies. Unfortunately, it is like after one disaster or incident, we make all the noise and we revert to default mode until the next disaster. And that is why my company, Safety Consultants and Solution Providers Limited is looking at how we can get professionals together to discuss these things and look at how we can safeguard lives and properties. I will speak more on this later in the interview.

It has often been said that fire and safety professionals should be involved in building or construction from the planning stage to the execution stage. How do you react to this?

The issue of involving fire and safety professionals from when a building is being constructed from the scratch is one of the purposes of this summit I said my company is planning. We are starting from architects, financiers and even donor agencies. We are also bringing together safety professionals as well as regulators to change the narratives in mitigating these incidents. The critical importance of getting stakeholders together has never been more important going by the carelessness and greed of builders where mandate and rules of regulators like the DPR are not respected. There is an urgent call to save the populace from these incessant fire incidents. First it was the Otedola bridge incident. And now, another one in Karu, in Abuja. We have to stem this ugly tide.

Now, can you throw more light on this summit?

This summit would be for stakeholders to look into these things. We also have to bring in government like the Lagos Fire Safety Regulatory Commission to ensure that these issues are mitigated. I mean these accidents that have become prevalent and jeopardising the lives and safety of the people. We are looking at critical stakeholders like architects, engineers and implementers. This is an urgent call to come together and find a solution to these things.

There is always the issue of fatalism: people believing certain things like fire outbreak cannot happen to them. How do we change this mindset?

On changing the mindset of our people on fatalism, I would say it is not about individuals but professional call to best practices and actions. That is why we are looking at professionals because they are there to enlighten and educate and guide the populace. We need to bring in the importance and values of these risk mitigants. Yes, it might not happen every day but whenever it happens, it is equal to a suicide.

The event will be taken place at the Black Diamond Hotel in Lekki on April 3rd, 2025 commencing by 9am.

Why does the nation need this type of summit right now?

It is important for Nigeria and the larger West Africa that we need to have a robust strategy and this is even more important to have a transformative engineering strategy in securing our assets and businesses while we minimise liabilities in our nation and continent.

Who and who need this kind of summit? And what are the takeaways derivable and as well as the benefits to their businesses and investments?

It is most critical for C-Level managers, like managing directors and chief executive officers of companies to attend. Why it is important is because there is need to understand regulatory requirements, there is also need to for compliance and to understand risks in order to make money. And also for the ‘protection’ of their money so that they could effectively manage it and ensure returns on investments devoid of risks. They also need to mitigate losses as they move forward.

Another set of professionals who can leverage on the opportunity provided by the summit are Risk Management Professionals and Financial Advisors. These are officers directly involved in identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks across a business. They will find the summit’s focus on technical risk advisory and safety system engineering highly relevant. These professionals are responsible for developing risk management strategies that align with business objectives and would benefit from learning new tools and techniques. Financial Advisors, Investment Managers and Legal and Compliance Officers are always looking for ways to optimise investments and protect assets while Legal and compliance officers ensure businesses follow laws and regulations, and they play a critical role in risk mitigation.

Your company has lined up an array of professionals and experts that will be speaking at the summit. Can you give and insight into some of them?

Absolutely. The key speakers are people with vast experience across economies. There is EkeneNnabuihe. He is the chief executive officer of Boulevard Hotel. He is a seasoned executive with over 20 years experience as the Group Managing Director of this hotel group. He is widely recognised for his contributions to the Africa’s hospitality industry. There is also Engr. TukurLawa. He is the General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of NAK Steel Rolling and Processing Mill Limited. He is a renowned HSSE (health, safety, security and environment) and Sustainability Professional with over 30 years of experience. He is former managing director of Nigeria Communications Satellite, NIGCOMSAT. Also to speak at the summit is James Adenuga. James is the Group Chief of HSSE and Sustainability at Dangote. His brief includes development and implementation of fit-for-purpose framework of a group-wide health and safety management system of the Dangote Group. All these guys I mentioned are for the morning session.

For the afternoon session, we have also put in place an array of professionals to do justice to topics during the session. We have Julius AbanshebeAkpong. Akpong is the head of QHSE, Egbin Power Plc. He is a well-travelled corporate sustainability professional with over 18 years of experience across power generation, pharmaceutical, aviation and consultancy sectors. Also expected is GogomaryOyet. He is the Group Head of External Relations and Communications, Environment, Health, Safety and Quality at OVH Energy Marketing Limited. He has worked with Shell, he has worked with Oando and so on. TolaAwoluyi is a highly accomplished Process Risk Engineer with extensive experience across multiple countries. He also holds the position of Principal Process Risk Engineer at a reputable organization.  And my humble self will also be part of the afternoon session. I don’t need to say much about myself. (laughter).

Can you give insight into why your organisation is putting together the summit in the first place?

Safety Consultants and Solution Providers Limited wants to leverage its expertise in advisory and technical process and safety services to address critical issues surrounding fire and security systems, compliance with HSE management standards, and risk mitigation strategies tailored for diverse industries. With the increasing complexity of business risks today, our goal is to provide industry leaders with the right strategies, tools, and technical safety solutions to mitigate risks while driving long-term profitability. This high-level forum will equip business leaders and investors with the tools needed to navigate today’s complex financial and regulatory landscape.  Top-tier executives can engage with industry experts, thought leaders and seasoned advisors on securing business values in a rapidly evolving landscape. Through keynote addresses, panel discussions, and technical workshops, attendees will gain actionable strategies to enhance financial security.

Can you talk of sectoral relevance of this summit?

You will agree with me that the construction sector in Nigeria today is big. If you look at the sector in West African and Africa, we have the fastest growing sector in real estate. We have to look at this sector because a lot of money is being put into this by financiers. They are even looking beyond our local industry to the world at large.

Looking at the theme of the summit, ‘Securing Business Value, Investments and Assets’. What informed the choice of this theme?

The continuous failure in massive investments by financiers and donor agencies informed this. In Nigeria, you look at major infrastructure like roads. We repeat the construction of the same roads over and over again because the key indices are not looked at. When you look at this, we need to come together to see how we can align ourselves with what the rest of the world is doing so that we can get positive results and stop wasting scarce resources. Where are we going to be in the next 50 years? What would have been our key achievements? How do we safeguard investments, both public and private? These are critical questions we need to ask and provide answers to.

When is this summit taking place?

It will take place on April 3rd, this year, in Lagos.