The Council for the Regulations of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) has adopted a regional organisational structure layer for its operation, a move said to be designed to ensure that its services get to the grassroots, across Nigeria.
To this end, the organisation has arranged its offices in the 36 states of the Federation and the FCT, Abuja, into seven regional operational centres geared at boosting its regulatory and supervisory roles in the country.
Sadiq Z. Abubakar, national president of the organisation, made this disclosure while speaking to BusinessDay on the sidelines of the inauguration of the North-West zonal office, held on Wednesday in the commercial city of Kano.
According to him, the establishment of the regional offices is a sequel to the recent approval by the Council of COREN for the introduction of the regional structure, which culminated in the creation of the Regional Offices.
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Abubakar said that in line with the approval, the Northwest region has Kano as its headquarters, the Southwest with headquarters in Ibadan, South-South with headquarters in Port-Harcourt, South-East with headquarters in Enugu, North-East with headquarters in Gombe, and North-Central with headquarters in Abuja.
In addition, he disclosed that as a result of the special position which Lagos occupied in the scheme of the organisation, the city has been elevated to a standalone special regional status in the structural change.
“In the last three years, when this assignment, we realised that our structure is not the best structure that it should be as a regulator. We also realised that we need to have more interaction with the grassroots, in that, while the COREN structure was reviewed.
“COREN have an office in the Headquarters, Abuja, we have State offices in all the 36 states, including Abuja, we have staff and logistics to operate, but we realised that we do not have good contact with the grassroots.
“So, COREN decided to add a layer, what we called regional Structure, the Council of COREN approves, this introduction of Regional Structure, so we now have seven (7) Regional Offices, Northwest, with headquarter in Kano, Southwest with headquarter in Ibadan, South-South, with headquarter in Port-Harcourt, South -East with headquarter in Enugu, North-East with headquarter in Gombe, and North-Central with headquarter in Abuja, then we have special region which is Lagos, so we gave Lagos a regional status.
“For us to be able to operate these regional structures, a Standing Committee was constituted for each of these regions, comprising of former president of the body, former registrar of COREN, former Council members, and serving Council members, of course, made up of engineers, technologists, technicians, craftsmen, and artisans that reside in those particular, regions.
“At the beginning of this year, embarked on inaugurating these regional structures, what we called regional standing committees, COREN has successfully inaugurated that of South-South, early February, this year in Port-Harcourt, we have inaugurated that of Lagos, we inaugurated that South East, in Enugu, just two months ago, and we are coming here in North-West and we are inaugurating that region in Kano, so this one of the key issues that brought us to Kano today.
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“We are here to inaugurate the North-West Regional Steering Committee. The head of the North-West Steering Committee is nobody else than the former president of COREN, and a former president of NOC, our mentor, our senior brother, Engineer Habu Ahmed Gumel, unfortunately.
“He has a national assignment, most of you know that is national chairman of the Nigerian Olympic Committee (NOC), and last week the leadership of the International Olympic Committee came to Nigeria, to assess Nigeria`s readiness to host it bid to host the Commonwealth Game in 2030, he left the country yesterday, to lead the Nigerian NOC to formally present Nigeria`s bid interest in London, so he send his apology that we will not be here.
“I am sure when you are given the programme, you will see all the members of the North-West Steering Committee. Engineer Habu Gumel has been deputised by another veteran professional, Engineer Abdullahi, we have the World President, and is also an indigene of Kano, Engineer Balarabe Shehu. We also have another former COREN president, the incoming Council President, Engineer A. A Rabiu, and many of them, like our former president, Engineer Usman Alkali from Zamfara state.
“We have Professor Hashum Alhassan, who is the head of the Kano State Technical Committee, and many others”, he explained.
Providing insights about COREN, Abubakar stated that COREN has been in existence for the last fifty-two years, regulating engineering practitioners in Nigeria, including engineers, technologists, technicians, craftsmen and artisans.
He noted that the organisation has also been regulating the education of engineering since 1972, adding that every university that offers an engineering course usually have its engineering programme, and other related programmes accredited.
“Also, in every polytechnic in Nigeria that offers engineering and technology programmes at HND and ND levels, COREN accredits the programme along with NBET, and every technical college in Nigeria that is offering technical skills, and even private training centres that offer technical skills, COREN regulates those training.
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“The essence of these regulations is that whenever you regulate and accredit a programme, the graduands will come out and practice, after they have been examined, and they will be given a license to practice in Nigeria.
“Any Engineer, any Technologist, any Technician, any craftsman, and artisans that do not have COREN registration or COREN license to practice, and they are offering such services, are quacks. I started with this explanation for all of us to understand what COREN is.
“Any engineering structure that you see, being designed, and used in Nigeria, in all the sectors like the oil, and gas, telecommunication, aviation, manufacturing, construction, mining, agro-allied, in all these sectors that I mentioned, and other sectors that have to do economic development of Nigeria, has to be regulated by CREN, of course after our year of experience, other regulators have come up in the sectors, other regulators that have been established alongside with CREN, NCC, in the telecommunication sector, NITDA, also in the telecommunication sector, we have the Upstream, and Downstream regulators, in the oil and gas sector, we have NCAA, in the aviation sector.
“We also regulate the power sector. All these regulators operate hand in hand with CREN. Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the media”, he further explained.
