Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria (APBN) has tasked its members on the need to abide by professional ethics and code while carrying out their duties.
The president of APBN, Surveyor Akinloye Oyegbola made this known when he spoke in Abuja, yesterday during the 11th annual summit of the association. He said, “APBN as the umbrella association for all professions in the country has the undisputable responsibility to continue to intensify its effort on advocacy and enlightenment. This is borne from the conviction that it is the professionals of any country that would develop it.”
The APBN president said the summit provides an avenue for her thirty member-bodies to come together with a view to brainstorming on issues of concern to the nation and proffering appropriate and enduring solutions to them.
He said, “It is common knowledge that the world is going through trying times. Just as the slow socio-economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic was gathering momentum came the Russian invasion of Ukraine which has preoccupied the developed countries. As lives are being lost daily, the attention of the developed countries has been shifted to trying to contain the invasion and its far-reaching implications.
“It is as if our nation’s share of this was not enough, we have high level of inflation and insecurity to contend with on a daily basis.”
Other speakers at the summit charged professionals to display personal and professional integrity in the line of duty.
Segun Ajanlekoko, a past president of APBN in his paper presentation said government procurement involves a high risk of corruption because of the huge size of financial turnover and the complexity of many procurement processes in which businesses interact very closely with politicians and civil servants.
He, however, said professionals working on procuring entities and other government officials involved in the public procurement process, must display personal and professional integrity.
He said, “Everyone associated with the public procurement process or directly responsible for facilitating the acquisition of goods and services with public funds should strive to avoid fraud, waste and abuse of public resources, whether it is the result of over specifications of required goods, paying unreasonably high prices for substandard goods, collusion with other bidders or other forms of unacceptable practices.”
In his presentation, Prof Muhammad Kabiru Dallatu of the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) said professional corruption and misconduct destroy nations and inflict suffering on the populace.
He said, “Such actions of ours turn other people’s lives of happiness to sorrow, tranquility to devastation, from joyful life to terrible experiences and on the extreme, from an enjoyable life to horrible consequences of untimely death or painful life with morbidities.
“Professional misconduct is therefore disastrous, catastrophic and destructive. With or without any legislation discouraging it, it should be avoided by any right thinking professional.
“Professional bodies therefore, should design an internal mechanism for one to one approach of discouraging corruption and professional misconduct among members.”
Earlier in a keynote address, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, the chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) urged professional bodies in Nigeria to develop a code of ethics and enforce the code by punishing members who violate such ethics.
