Taiwo Ogunniyi
Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria, CIPM Kwara state branch, recently converged on Ilorin the Kwara State Capital to brainstorm towards finding solutions to the socioeconomic challenges.
Speaking at the Second Annual Conference of the Institute, Chairman of the state branch of the institute, Mrs Olaide Gloria Ajiboye, said the conference was prompted by the current challenges affecting countries around the world, particularly human resources managers.
“As human resources managers, we thought we should gather and brainstorm towards finding solutions to the socioeconomic challenges and present to the government.”
Mrs Olaide, added that “we want to proffer solutions for the current challenges triggered by the removal of the fuel subsidy and its attendant socio-economic consequences among others on the citizens.
She said ” We look at the issue around the world in Nigeria, the issue of the change of naira, the issue of fuel prices that keeps on increasing everyday is also challenging to many organisation.
” Many organisations that run their services on buying fuel are crippling, they are suffering, they are finding it difficult to survive some of them are even laying off their staff, it is challenging to the human resources practitioners, because as human resources Practitioners, it is difficult for you to lay your hands and begin to lay off your staff that have worked for you in the past, staff that have contributed to the growth of the organisation you begin to lay them off because of the effect of the increase in prices, high inflation that is affecting the cost of production.
“we now thought as human resources Practitioners, we should gather and proffer solutions, brainstorm and compile some of the solutions that the government can use after this programme to make sure that we surmount all these problems that are affecting our industries and human resources Practitioners.
“What we are bringing to the table are solutions that the government can use to solve the recent crises in the country. The amount of things that one thousand naira can buy in those days, one thousand naira can’t buy it now it is challenging, we need to advise the government on what to do. Programme like this is the area where we bring out solutions where government can pick and solve the problems of the nation” he added.
The lead speaker at the conference, Dr Christiana Famro, who spoke on the theme “Human Resource Management In Challenging Times”, said challenging times are universal and not peculiar to Nigeria only.
She described challenging times as characterized by considerable stress, when great difficulties and turbulence are to be overcome or endured.
Also speaking, University lecturer in Ilorin, Professor Abdullateef Oladimeji, carpeted the Federal government for not making adequate preparations before the the fuel subsidy removal.
Professor Abdullateef Oladimeji Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Al-Hikman University, Ilorin, said that the best thing for the government, would have been to prepare the minds of Nigerian citizens before the stoppage of the fuel subsidy.
Prof Oladimeji in an interview with journalists on the sideline of the programme said although, every presidential candidate of all the major political parties in the 2023 general elections promised to remove the fuel policy, “the preparation would have been to put measures in place to cushion the effects of the policy on Nigerians, but unfortunately, here we are.”
Professor Abdullateef, stressed that the palliative programme and reduction of work-days by the government to cushion the effects of the fuel subsidy removal, would not solve the problems triggered by the policy.