Leaders of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Nigerian Institute of Welding (NIW) have condemned moves by some members of the group to create a crisis within its fold.
They described it as an attempt to scuttle the efforts to domesticate the welding profession in the country.
Last week, a group comprising some members of the BoT and Authorised National Body (ANB), an affiliate of NIW called for a stakeholders’ meeting scheduled to hold at the Presidential Hotel, Port Harcourt tomorrow.
But the proposed meeting was dismissed with a disclaimer published in some national newspapers at the weekend which was signed by Dr. Chudi Egbunike and Dr. Solomon Edebiri, chairman and secretary, BoT of NIW respectively.
Addressing journalists on the latest development in Ikeja, Lagos at the weekend, Egbunike said the meeting was the handiwork of persons opposed to NIW’s alignment with the federal government to domesticate the welding profession in the country.
He said, “There are a few persons oppose to our efforts to work with the federal government to domesticate welding profession certification in-country as against international certification.
“They claim that operators in the oil and gas industry prefer the international certification but the question is how does that help the development of the sector in terms of local content.”
According to him, the institute has in the past five years worked with the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology to draw up a national policy framework aimed at ensuring that welding and fabrication pivot industrial transformation of the country.
He stated that the Federal Executive Council (FEC), under President Muhammadu Buhari approved the national policy on welding and welding-related fields at its meeting on October 26, 2022.
Egbunike said all is now set for its implementation but lamented that some members who are opposed to the move are out to mislead the public.
He said, “The institute is no part of the meeting as we will collaborate with the federal government and other relevant agencies as well as our registered members to promote the Nigerian local content drive and domesticate welding practice in Nigeria in line with global best practices,” he said.
On his part, Edebiri described those calling for the Port Harcourt meeting as intruders, declaring that most of them had not rectified their membership with the institute.
“Most of the people who signed the meeting announcement are not even members of the institute because if you go back at the record of the institute, they haven’t even subscribed to their membership for years.
“And when you have not subscribed to your membership, you are not a member. These are people that believe that if they do welding, they are stakeholders but as members, they are not. So, they don’t have the right to use the name of the institute to call a meeting.
Worse still our investigation shows that those people purportedly signed there, have all claimed differently that they signed in error,” he said.
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