NIGERIA MASTERWEB DAILY NEWS

By Oyeols Akin The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers, Chartered Institute of Bankers, Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, Nigerian Society of Engineers. These are some examples of the professional bodies we have in Nigeria and others abound! The ones listed here are just a tip of the iceberg. However, the ongoing crisis in the banking sector suddenly leads me to the question of what exactly the roles of all these professional bodies are? A professional body is meant to consist of a group of people in a learned occupation, who are entrusted with maintaining control or oversight of the legitimate practice of the occupation. They are also supposed to safeguard the public interest. I take a look all around me and I suddenly discover that true professionalism died long ago and has taken the back seat in this country. Rather, in almost every industry what we now have is a situation where quacks have wrested control and are now at the forefront of the industry. In most developed countries before operating as a plumber, electrician or carpenter, much less as an Architect or Engineer, one would typically have passed some exams and obtained to sort of certification to qualify to repair plumbing or wire a house. But here in Nigeria, all manner of people, both qualified and usually unqualified take on such jobs. The banking sector is a vital industry in any country. It is an industry where the raw material is money….other people’s money! Through lending, it has the capacity to provide much needed capital to millions of people and industries, which might ordinarily not have had access to the funds required to set up their own small business, expand an existing one or add another production line to say a cement factory. All of which would provide millions of jobs, lift so many out of poverty and grow a national economy. Yet, despite all the benefits of a virile banking sector, the industry is fraught with risk as it is a constant challenge for the leadership of any bank to find a right balance between the desire to make profits and satisfy shareholder demand on the one hand and the safeguarding of depositors funds on the other. Therefore one would typically expect that in order to achieve this, the leadership of our banks would certainly have to know what they were doing. But do they? In an industry as delicate and important as banking, one would expect that the Chartered Institute of Bankers would play a vital role in the running of these banks. Not directly of course! But by ensuring that those saddled with the responsibility of managing our banks are sound in every aspect of the profession. But sadly, this does not appear to be the case. The profession of banking has been so diminished that the sector now attracts all manner of people. In a typical bank, if any survey was carried out, I can almost guarantee that every bank in this country has fewer Chartered Bankers or even Banking and Finance graduates in its employ than non bankers. In fact, when I was in University I recall some of my fellow students telling those studying Banking and Finance that “they were wasting their time”. Now, that is not to say that only professional bankers can work in a bank. At junior levels, yes, I believe they can, but at senior level? At Assistant General Manger level? Where the decisions that determine the future viability and sustainability of a bank are taken? No, I think not! What does a Yoruba graduate know about banking? What does a graduate of pharmacy know about banking? There is no way such a person would have had the tenets of the profession ingrained in his mind. Such a person can be smart and highly intelligent, but that doesn’t make him or her a banker? I find it odd that someone who studied Pharmacy, who spent 6 years learning about the do’s and don’ts of her PROFESSION, all the ethical and moral issues, suddenly veers off into banking and before you can say “hopscotch”, is suddenly in charge of a sensitive department such as Credit and Risk Management or becomes the Head of Treasury. Little wonder then, that our banks have stupidly created all manner of bad loans. Little wonder that they continually put all their eggs in one basket, ignoring the risk of credit concentration as it relates to individuals or companies as well as industries. Little wonder that marketing has been reduced to employing pretty girls of questionable backgrounds to hit the streets and encouraging them to do “what the girls in that other bank do”, rather than actually selling a product. If banking were so simple or trivial, those who designed the course wouldn’t have designed it for 4 years and there wouldn’t be a professional body saddled with the responsibility of maintaining the highest standards of ethics, integrity and professionalism (although CIBN can be said to have failed in that regard). While I have used banking as a case study, the fact is that professionalism in Nigeria has died. Real Estate management is now an all comers affair. Everyone is now an ‘agent’. Architecture and Engineering have been taken over by quacks. Clearing and forwarding is now something everyone can do. What are we loosing by the death of professionalism? Well, for one quality. Quality is a priority in any business and profession. It is not only restricted to the product, but also the performance of the professionals. Lack of quality leads to a compromise in the standard of performance. This compromise in the standard of performance is what our banking crisis smacks of!!