A meeting between the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) and one of its former affiliates, the Nigerian Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (NIEEE), over autonomy on Thursday night ended in a deadlock.
The hybrid meeting, with the media and engineers in attendance, was convened by the NIEEE to give the state of affairs of the institute.
The NSE, during its Governing Council Meeting on July 24, was reported to have excused the NIEEE based on issues of jurisdiction.
After listening to all positions with over 100 participants, the NSE President, Mr Tasiu Gadiri-Wudil insisted that the NIEEE was its affiliate and must be subject to the society.
Gadiri-Wudil, while repeating the history of how NIEEE started, 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 said he is also a fellow of the NIEEE and the international affiliate.
He reeled out rules, ethics as well as constitutional provisions.
Earlier, the 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 38 affiliates but was always being represented by non-experts in national electricity and electrical policies, hence its sustained struggle for autonomy in the last 40 years.
He argued that NIEEE was 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“.
Alan 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’’.
“To be a member of NSE is optional, to be registered with COREN is statutory, to be a member of NIEEE is obligatory and tomorrow to be a member of Chartered Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers would be statutory,’’ he added.
Other members of NIEEE argued that the misunderstanding was arising from the issue of nomenclature.
They suggested that the Chartered aspect of the institute be separated from the main professional body, the NIEEE.
They said this would ease administration and properly spell out the roles of the two entities to be under NIEEE.
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 said Nigeria currently had about 10 committees against China which had over 200.
The institute, according to him, targets 100 technical committees within 10 years.
