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NIEEE Makes Case For Autonomy Of Professional Bodies

The National Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Engr Akan Michael has made case for the autonomy of the engineering profession. He made the call during the maiden national media chat organized by the NIEEE to give the state of affairs report of the institute on Thursday night.

Engr Akan reels out the achievements of the last five months which he said were a result of the commitment of national executive committee members and members of the institute. He mentioned that the institute has been able to inaugurate 8 chapters in an attempt to ensure that every state has at least a chapter.

He also said that standards development has remained a core mandate of the institute and so has convened three IEC technical committees along with the Standards Organisation of Nigeria and hopes to increase it to 6 very soon. He said he has set up a committee to review the Nigerian Codes of Practice on Earthing and assured the members that the committee was soon to complete its work.
On opportunities that the members should key into, he explained Nigeria will participate in this year’s IEC Young Professional Competition and two of our members will be part of it. He encourage young engineers to take particular interest in standards development.
Engr Akan also talked about the need for the institute to partner with global organizations to train and certify members who will meet the needs of the global market.

The NSE, during its Governing Council Meeting on July 21 was reported to have excused the NIEEE based on issues of jurisdiction.
The National chairman responded that the incident was a culmination of 40 years of NIEEE’s struggle to institutionalize professionalism in the practice of engineering. He mentioned that no professional body can succeed without autonomy and thanked the NSE President Engr Tasiu Gidari-Wudil for the decision of the Council which was well received by members.

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Responding, the NSE President, Mr Tasiu Gadiri-Wudil insisted that the NIEEE was its affiliate and must be subject to the society.
While repeating the history of how NIEEE started, he insisted that it could not be autonomous and as such its registration with the CAC as an institute was invalid.
He said “there is no conflict at all between NIEEE and NSE’’ but insisted that since NIEEE started as a division of NSE it must remain under the authority of the society.

The NSE President who joined the meeting from Glasgow reeled out rules, ethics as well as constitutional provisions to back his position.

Earlier, National Chairman of the NIEEE, Mr Michael Akan, explained that the institute metamorphosed from being just a division of NSE to its present status.

Akan said that the institute had 33 chapters and was keen on the professional development of engineering practice which is the vision set by the founding fathers that he claims is lacking in the current NSE structure hence its sustained struggle for autonomy in the last 40 years.

He argued that NIEEE was not a subsect of NSE and should not be subjugated, citing laws, ethics and international procedures for professional membership of engineering bodies.

He said the two bodies could sign a Memorandum of Understanding as the NSE did with a foreign counterpart “to work together“.

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Akan insisted that membership in NSE was not compulsory. He said that the process had lingered for too long, and “no professional body can succeed without autonomy’’. According to him,
“To be a member of NSE is optional, to be registered with COREN is statutory, to be member of NIEEE is obligatory and tomorrow to be a member of Chartered Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers would be statutory,’’ he added.

Past National Chairmen of the Institute supported the position of the chairman while a member of NIEEE argued that the misunderstanding was arising from the issue of nomenclature.
He suggested that the Chartered Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of Nigeria, CIEEEN be separated from the NIEEE as this would ease administration and properly spell out the roles of the two entities.
Earlier also, the National Chairman of NIEEE presented his scorecard and a 10-year technical standard roadmap for Nigeria to catch up with the rest of the world. He concluded by saying that NIEEE and CIEEEN are distinct bodies with different administrative structures that will complement each other.

He said Nigeria currently participates in about 3 technical committees at IEC as against China which is on over 2000 technical committees.

The institute, according to him, targets 100 technical committees within the next 10 years.
Engineers Forum reports that the hybrid meeting, with journalists and engineers in attendance,
ended with members well informed on the direction of the institute

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