The pioneer Chairman of the College of Fellows of the Chartered Institute of Project Managers of Nigeria (CIPMN), Engr. Olatunji Ariyomo, FNSE, has resigned his positions with the Institute.
Ariyomo has also dissociated himself from any further relationship with the leadership of the organization.
In his resignation letter, Ariyomo stated that “continuing association with the leadership of the Institute in its present form would amount to supporting what represents nothing but sabotage against the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
Ariyomo, a former member of the Ministerial Taskforce on Power, who was elected the Institute’s Vice Chairman in 2023 added that “without the reform approved by the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces on the 25th of January 2022 which directed that the establishment Act of the Institute be amended, it will remain another opaque regulatory agency that serves only a few as its current defects perpetuate the hold of individuals, invest the administrative and accounting roles in a single person contrary to extant rules with the Institute being bizarely both an association of members like an NGO and a primal regulatory organ”.
According to the engineer, the key reform “approved by Mr. President is contained in paragraph 5 of the SGF policy memo to the President dated 19th January 2022 with Ref No SGF.6/S.17/T/244.
“That mandate is the emplacement of necessary structure and processes to ensure the amendment of the Institute’s Act.
“The Sole Administrator that was appointed by Mr. President, Dr. (Mrs). Mimi Abu, understood this as well as the fact that her assignment included reconciling the warring factions.
“This informed her directive for the revalidation of the membership of all individuals who had earlier registered as Project Managers through the previous leadership of the institute at no cost whatsoever.”
Engr. Ariyomo, himself an experienced project manager, further expressed his disappointment, saying “it is an embarrassing surprise to me to observe that the various groups have continued their strife for control and that the Institute has gone ahead recently to publish the names of some people as legitimate members whilst excluding others ostensibly because they belong to ‘other factions’.
“I have spent 3 years mediating in matters relating to the Institute. I facilitated the meeting of Mrs. Victoria Okoronkwo with the Honourable Minister in April 2021. Despite the unambiguous directive of the Minister for her to comply with established due process and conform the Institute’s activities to the financial regulations of the Federal Government, she flatly refused and pitted herself as an adversarial authority against the Minister, a clear exhibition of administrative insubordination.
“In November 2021, she sought to compel me as the Chairman of an investigating Committee to help her indict one of her rivals. I refused to be so used and insisted on compliance with the directive of the Federal Government on reconciliation, and conformance with government-sanctioned financial regulations”, he added.
The Chartered Institute of Project Managers of Nigeria is a statutory organ of the Federal Government established by the CIPMN Act 2018.
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