We’ll open door for more town planning firms in Nigeria – ATOPCON

The newly elected President of the Association of Town Planning Consultants of Nigeria (ATOPCON), Bisi Adedire, has promised that the association under him would strive to ensure the continuity and sustenance of existing town planning firms.

Adedire also noted that the association will open the door for the acceptance of more firms across the country.

Speaking while delivering his acceptance speech shortly after being elected as the President of ATOPCON during the Annual General Meeting/Election of ATOPCON in Ibadan on Thursday, Adedire, said it had always been his desire to see younger generation of town planners emerge as private consultants and subsequently having ray of hope and survival in the profession.

Adedire said he sees his election as a very huge feat because it is a call to higher responsibility and opportunity for him to contribute his quota from a leadership standpoint to the improvement of professional consultancy practice in the country.

According to him: “It is with all sense of humility and responsibility that I stand before you this day to accept the honour bestowed on me as the elected president of the Association of Town Planning Consultants of Nigeria (ATOPCON) through your collective decisions and votes.

“I must say that I am overwhelmed by the show of support and encouragement I have received. While accolades and encomiums are pleasant and relaxing, they also send the mind on a journey of retrospective thinking.

“I sincerely appreciate the love and belief you all have in me and my abilities, but it must be said that your trust in me is basically putting me on my toes to perform.

“In the words of Simon Sinex, a leadership training expert, we are not victims of our situation, we are the architects of it. I want to put it to us that whatever level we think we are on the scale of performance in town planning service delivery, we brought ourselves there.

“And if we are to be more effective in our service delivery as we have discussed in this Annual General Meeting, we would also collectively make it happen. What this means therefore is that no man builds a castle solely by himself”.

He solicited the cooperation and support of members of the association for the next two years, saying this was not the first time he would be elected to serve in a leadership capacity in either NITP or ATOPCON.

“I once served as the Chairman of NITP Lagos State Chapter, I was the pioneering chairman of ATOPCON, Lagos State Branch, some years ago I was the Secretary General of ATOPCON and so many more.”

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