Akinloye Olufemi Oyegbola, a surveyor and former President, Nigerian Institution of Surveyors, is the 17th President of the Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria (APBN). In this interview with DAYO AYEYEMI, the President of the conglomerate of 31 professional bodies expresses the opinion that Nigerian professionals have what it takes to compete favourably with their foreign counterparts, urging government at all levels to patronise them to grow the economy.
How can you describe the current state of Nigeria’s economy and how it affects the professional bodies?
The economy is struggling to stay afloat and we are praying that it will be afloat for a long time and grow. It is not news that it will affect all aspects of human endeavours and that of the professionals won’t be the exception. What those in the professional circles are facing has been there only that it has been aggravated by the state of the economy. What we are facing is primarily acknowledgement of one’s expertise when it is needed. The government always prefers to bring in foreign counterparts – the supposed experts – even in so many areas where indigenous professionals can be used. So, it is a perennial problem that has just been aggravated by the state of the economy when there are not even funds to go round. That is one area. This tends to make quackery hold sway in some other professions. We know that quackery is supposed to be the fake of the original. It is the original that gives right to the fake one. What the original is supposed to be doing is to go into measures that we take further away from the fake. When you are so good, the difference will be cleared and nobody will mistake the original for fake. But that can only happen in the professional circles at home when you have the required level of patronage, It is like production, if you produce goods and they don’t go, you cannot improve, no matter the resources you have. It is what you sell that you want to use. Even if you have to go for loans, they would check your cashflow to see how strong your company is. And what will show is the sale you made of the products. Where your products are there in the shop and they are not moving, this tampers with sales. When the sale is tampered, improvement is very far away. This is the situation with the professionals in the country. When you don’t have that patronage, you don’t have enough room to even grow.
Who is not patronising the professionals? Is it the government or Nigerians?
Of course, the government runs the economy. When we talk about the economy, whether we like it or not, it will also have its own ripple effects on how the populace really takes the practice of the professions. We know that the professions are regulated by the government, and since they are regulated by the government, then it behooves the government to ascertain and make sure that their practice attains a minimum level. Once it has attained that minimum level, then one would expect that without any fear, the government will be there to really patronise the professionals. You know, in our economy, the government is in control of most things. If most of these things have been left for the private sector, we won’t be talking of the government. The government is the chief spender in this economy, so if the chief spender is not patronising you, then there is a problem. This is because most of the things that drive the economy are still under the purview and being regulated by the government.
Have you discovered why the government is not acknowledging the expertise of the indigenous professionals?
It is because society has not grown enough. You call it a growing economy, you call it a developing country, and some would say under-developed. This is because, at the end of the day, the individuals are not yet for the people, they are for themselves.
Who?
I mean those that are in the government. They are for what they would get rather than what the people will get. And where you have that holding sway, the rules of law have not been well established to run nearly automatically. It is like in programming, the extent to which you have human intervention in software dictates the strength of that software. When you are writing a program, you are automating, and if you are automating something, you want to drastically reduce the extent of human intervention in it. So if you have to intervene most of the time, there is still something wrong with that program you are writing, and that is the problem we have on the ground. There are so many things that are supposed to run on their own in a market economy but they are not. And because they are not running on their own, you will have bottlenecks that people will want to use to line their pockets.
Which area do you want the government to patronise because I have seen some of the expatriates building our roads, bridges. Is it not because the locals do not have the right equipment and the technical knowhow?
If the government wants its professionals to develop, it can even acquire most of the equipment. I studied abroad and even though I studied abroad, that does not mean that the education we acquired in Nigeria is inferior. If it is inferior, then you won’t have Nigerians going abroad to excel academically. What we are talking about is beyond that. I have just given you an example. If it is equipment, what do you do with equipment? You buy it. Do you understand? You can only be able to buy equipment if you are busy. It is when you are working and make money that you can establish and recapitalize to buy equipment. When they bring the equipment, who works on the equipment? They are Nigerians.
If they don’t have the required level of patronage that will give them the wherewithal to bring those things in, then you can’t talk of equipment.
How are you taking on the government to find solutions to this?
That is what we stand for. What we are doing now is still part of what we are talking about. If I am not here, you may have to interview the doctors, engineers…. But in our conglomerate here, we 31 professional bodies have been speaking, and that is the extent so that we can have one voice to let the government know what we are experiencing.
We are not saying we are there already, but what we are saying is that those ones got to where they are today because of the patronage of their government. It is the patronage of the government that will make you develop. For instance, if you patronise me even on something I don’t know exactly yet, not that I don’t have an idea, I would go out (not you hiring them) to bring them. And when I bring them, I know what I want to pick from them so that when such a thing comes up tomorrow, I will be the one doing it.
and then