CIBN Seeks Roles for Professionals in Politics

• CIBN Seeks Roles for Professionals in Politics

The President, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, Dr Uche Olowu, has said that professionals should be allowed to play their roles in the country’s polity.

He said this during the board meeting of the Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria in Lagos.

He said, “As key stakeholders in the Nigerian project, the time has come for a strategic repositioning of the association to play a more active and relevant role in the polity. Our ultimate goal should be for the APBN to be a stronger and constructive national voice that will occupy an important place in the national polity discourse.”

As professional bodies, he said members should redefine how they could work more collaboratively with themselves, and other stakeholders to build the APBN envisaged by its founding fathers.

He said the body would need to intensify efforts and leverage its collective strengths to resolve issues facing significant segment of its members.

According to him, one of such issues is the non-placement of the qualifications of some of its members on the government’s scheme of service.

“We do not seem to understand how the government, through its agencies will approve and indeed accredit courses of study in institutions of higher learning and still deny their graduates employment in the civil service, reputed to be the highest employer of labour,” he said.

The President, APBN, Dr Omede Idris, said the association would continue to call on the government and the organised private sector to intensify efforts to turn around the economy, improve infrastructure in various sectors, thereby generating employment.

While speaking on the flood that ravaged some states recently, he said that he expected that the President’s approval of N3bn for flood preparedness, response and disaster mitigation would be applied judiciously and transparently.

“I am optimistic that the APBN could become a greater force and be more influential in the affairs of our nation,” he said.