Association of professional bodies berates govt on insecurity
By Matthew Denis, Abuja
The Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria (APBN) has berated the Federal government on the level of handling the insecurity situations in the country.
The President of the Association, Surveyor Akinloye Oyegbola made the disclosure during an interview with Nigerian NewsDirect at the two days APBN summit held in Abuja yesterday.
He said, “The level of insecurity is very alarming now and we have emphasized on this several times that there should be a complete overhaul of the security architecture and that was effected, and we have come again that there should be implementable approach that will actually give the desire results in the short term and long term to end the menace.
“ I’m impressed with the recent purchase of fighting helicopters, hoping that they will function effectively because government needs to be handle the security situations with kicklock, maybe now they are coming to terms with the enormity of the problems.”
The President called for inclusiveness and participation of professionals in governance of the country in accordance with their ethical conducts not as politicians but professional politicians.
He said, “We are appealing to our members to participate in politics as professionals and government should ensure that some core ministries and parastatals like Health, Works, Judiciary, Finance etc should be piloted by professionals.
“When you see someone in politics or holding a government office without adhering to his ethical conducts and people are not seeing the professional integrity in him, he is just a member of such professional body but not a professional himself.”
Surveyor Oyegbola called for synergy between the politicians and professional bodies to move the country torwards achieving greater heights.
He also tasked the 21 professional bodies that form the Association to have internal synergy thereby highlighting germane national issues with pressure for government to provide solutions when necessary.
The stakeholders at the summit agreed to work with the various governments to ensure implementation and completion of projects and policies with effective advocacy to the benefit of the society.
The Guest Speaker, Dr. Eze Onyekpere who spoke on ‘Transforming the Economy’ identified critical challenges as leadership, alternative framework as thinking out of the box and coming out of the box, transparency, accountability and innovation.
He said, “Resetting our economy for growth is possible but we need leadership with the right ideas, transparency, accountability and innovation.”
Also the President Association of Capital Market Academics, Dr. Uche Uwaleke who delivered paper on ‘Professionals Perspectives on Economic Development,’ recommended the professionals to support government policies and programmes, discourage unethical conduct, encourage participation in politics and have code of governance.
He urged the government to tackle insecurity and corruption, explore innovative means of financing infrastructures, health and education and to involve professionals in policy formulation and implementation.
