ACEN installs Akindayomi as 17th national president

The Association for Consulting Engineering in Nigeria (ACEN) has installed Engr. Charles Akinyele Akindayomi as its 17th President.

At the investiture ceremony held at the Muson centre, Onikan Lagos, Akindayomi who has been acting as a standby to the outgoing president, Engr. Suleiman Adamu, due to his appointment as the Minister of water resources, was officially installed to run the affairs of the group for two years.

In his acceptance speech, he pledged to move the association forward by collaborating with the government in areas of project procurements and advocate for strong government support, while ensuring that only ACEN registered consultants are used through the enforcement of the regulatory policies of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) Act.

He also urged government to embrace industrialisation and give Nigerian Engineers the space to create a prosperous country.

He said: “A country without any form of industrialization will not have an economy that is sustainable. The time is now right for our government to set up support and develop light industries to produce household items.

This will mop up all our graduates and unemployed engineering graduates. We can only create the country we dream of, when we give our Nigerian engineers the space to create solutions for different areas of human life.”

Present at the investiture ceremony was former Governor of Ogun state, Gbenga Daniel, who noted that Nigerian Engineers are not given enough opportunity to learn and grow.

“The biggest challenge we have as country is that we do not patronize our people, we keep looking for quality and do not provide enough opportunity for our people to learn on the job. It has always been surprising how we give even the smallest jobs to foreign companies. Like people usually say; Germany was built by Germans, Romans built Rome and if we think we are going to get anywhere if we keep bringing foreign companies to work for us, we would not learn and I think that is something we should change,” he said.