The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, COREN, Assembly, held the closing ceremony of its 31st assembly at the International Conference Center, Abuja Nigeria, on Wednesday, 9^th August 2023. COREN is the statutory body set up by the Federal Government of Nigeria with the mandate to regulate the practice of Engineering in all aspects and ramifications. 

The theme of this year’s assembly was ‘Entrenching and strengthening Engineering Practitioners’ Code of Conduct for Resilient Engineering Practice in Nigeria’.

In line with the theme of the occasion, the council assembly urged its members to adhere to the ethics of the profession as contained in the COREN Code of Conduct, to prevent Engineering failures which have become rampant in the country in recent times and have led to the huge loss of lives and property.

Speaking at the event, the chairman of COREN, Engineer Abubakar Sadiq Zubair, disclosed to the assembly that a tracking committee has been set up to give feedback on the implementation and achievements of the meeting’s resolutions at the next year’s conference.

While presenting the draft resolutions, the chairman technical committee, Engineer Okorie Uche, charged the engineering practitioners to exhibit the highest level of professionalism and competence. He urged them to uphold the tenets of the profession in order to boost the trust between them and their clients and enhance public welfare and safety.

The credibility of the Engineering profession rest largely on the integrity and professionalism who must be competent and strongly uphold the tenets and ethics of the profession

Engineer of Okorie Uche,Chairman COREN Technical Committee

The conference was centered on practical ways to strengthen the ethics of the profession with the aim of proffering solutions to the myriad of engineering challenges in the country.

Some of the participants spoke on ways to improve the quality of engineering in Nigeria to help safeguard the structures in the country and prevent structural losses and fatalities.

Engineer Abubakar Bello, a Deputy Director of Engineering, at the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Abuja Operations, advocated for focus to be given to improving technical education to the young aspiring engineers to ensure they have a good foundation.

Engineer Tawa Karim from Ogun state lamented about the fallen standards of engineering and called for a more robust process in the certification of Engineers to eliminate the issue of quackery in the profession.

Engineer Chichi Ogwuche from Benue state called for a review of the curriculum of teaching engineering in Nigerian Universities. He added that the ethics and conduct of the profession have to be improved right from the schools.

While delivering the vote of thanks, the Vice President of COREN and Chairman of the main organizing committee, Olu Ogundile urged the participants to use their newfound knowledge from assembly to continue driving innovation in the field of engineering.

The annual gathering of Engineers is the biggest gathering of engineering professionals in Nigeria, and it is aimed at finding solutions to issues of interest to members and the nation at large.

A total of 6,421 Engineers from different parts of the country attended this year’s assembly.

The meeting made some recommendations to improve the standards of engineering in Nigeria.

• COREN should rigorously pursue the implementation of executive order 5 in other to boost the participation of ingenious engineers in Nigeria’s infrastructural development and strict implementation of the code of conduct and ethics of engineering as contained in the COREN Code of Conduct.
• Also, COREN and other professional bodies are to encourage the formation of a consortium of engineering firms to handle challenging engineering projects.
• COREN and other engineering professional bodies should ensure adequate entrenchment through effective communication of the code of conduct to Ministries and departments, etc for effective implementation.
• The assembly urged COREN to work with other regulatory bodies to request that the government review it’s stand on defunding the body and allow more time to work out a conducive framework that would not be counterproductive to public safety.
• The leadership of COREN was encouraged to take steps to increase the body’s internally generated revenue and minimize operational costs.

The body was charged to work with other engineering associations to create a system of evaluation to measure how the body has fared in adhering to the ethics and code of conduct of the profession.

Story: Ihuoma Ukeje

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