The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep Femi Gbajabiamila, has said that the House would strengthen the activities of marketers in Nigeria to make the sector be in line with international best practices.
Rep. Gbajabiamila, who stated this in Abuja when he received a delegation of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN) led by the President and Chairman, Mr Tony Agenmonmen, assured that the House would work with the institute to improve the Nigerian marketing profession.
He decried a situation where young Nigerians would be employed by financial institutions as marketers and would be given unrealistic targets, saying that the practise should be discouraged.
This came just as the institute conferred honorary membership on the Speaker over his role in marketing good governance through good legislation in the country.
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According to him: “Let me thank you for this unexpected honour that you conferred on me. I’ll always cherish this everywhere I go.
“One thing that concerns me is you have a lot of people out there that go around in the name of marketing. I’m talking about the banking sector where young men and women are employed.
“You employ me in January, but by September, you’re saying I should meet a particular target not in millions but around one billion. Without saying it, we all know what happens.
“We tried to stop that in the past, and I brought a bill on that some years back. But I was surprised the push back that I got from some banks, including women. Some women Managing Directors came for the public hearing and kicked against it.
“But I want to see how we can address that once again because we can’t sit back and allow such things to happen. There are international best practices, and we should be able to follow that.
“If you can present a paper on that, we have a committee on banking, let me have a synopsis and see how we’ll go about it. I believe that together we can arrest the situation.”
Gbajabiamila also commended the institute for its efforts since 2003 when it was established by an Act of Parliament, saying there was a need for improvement.
The Speaker said the House would be represented at the institute’s annual conference for this year, which comes up in April in Benin, Edo State.
Earlier, Mr Agenmonmen, while seeking the support of the House to improve the institute, noted that there are loopholes in the existing Act establishing the institute and that there was a need for an amendment.
While promising that the institute was ready to collaborate with the House, the NIMN President added that some people practise marketing without the requisite qualifications and requirements and called for the support of the House to put a stop to that.
According to him, “we believe it’s important to respect the law. We have started deregistering those that don’t follow the law. We need your support on this.”
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