Having improved the professional ethics, eliminating quacks and increasing the coffers of the Nigerian Institute of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), the Chairman Lagos State chapter, Mr Elias Ovesour, in a recent chat with Dotun Ibiwoye stressed that deviating from the norm, a change in the value system, right leadership and focus on infrastructural development can upgrade any organization and the Nigerian economy. Excerpts:

There are investors who feel that inadequate infrastructure will always be a setback for the establishment of businesses and embarking on building projects? How can entrepreneurs overcome this phenomenon?
What we mean by infrastructure are the basic things that are required by the society to build upon. Infrastructure will be talking about road networks which is the nerve centre of any development, power, educational facilities that we have, the health situations – because the human being needs to be revitalized. He needs to be maintained and the only way that maintenance could occur is when you have the basic health facilities around.

It is just like a vehicle you are using, even under normal situation when there is a break-down, after a period you need to take the vehicle for repair or for servicing, that is how the human being acts. So we need these basics items. We need to develop the human being – that is capital building.

When people now say that infrastructurally we are deficient, they are correct. I must tell you that this problem that we are having today emanated when structural adjustment was formulated back then in 1986, and the value system was altered. After that, every other thing that was working started declining until we now got to a position of comatose where every other thing stopped functioning.

How have your organization been able to bring people out of this financial comatose?
The Nigerian Institute of Estate Surveyors and Valuers which I belong to, and being the chairman of the Lagos branch, where we have over 70 per cent of the population of estate surveyors in Nigeria, basically, our job is to complement the economic policy of the nation because what we do is that we are there for housing, we prepare feasibility studies, we acquire land for housing for clients, we advise the people about the best use on a particular piece of land.

We also assess when one wants to raise capital in the market for banks and they need a security, we now evaluate your security to know how much it is worth. Basically that is our service. We are not directly concerned with provision of these amenities but we provide the services. So when you now ask what basically have we been able to do, you must also know that when we are talking about the provision of these amenities, you must have the wherewithal to be able to do the provision and the only way to do it is when you are in the driving seat.

As an organization, what moves have you made to change the value system of your professional association?
Every year we have a conference where we gather to select topical issues that we look at and we put them together, proffer solutions and we come out with a communique every time and we present it to the government to look at. I must also tell you that everyone is frustrated by the system that we are operating that is not working perfectly, everyone is being frustrated by it so our organization per se is a minute aspect because we are less than 10,000 membership, what can this few number of people do when we are talking of a population of 150 million.

When I came on board as the chairman of the Lagos State branch of Nigerian Institute of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, there were two major problems confronting us. One was the issue of our national body that was being politicized and tribal sentiments was being brought into it. Secondly, the secretariat that we are building at Alausa had issues, not knowing that the fight was more or less between two major tribes. But when I came on board I appeared to be neutral by birth and worked with people based on pedigree not sentiments.

So, how have you reshaped the attitude of your members and Nigerians?
If we call ourselves property experts because all our jobs is about properties, land and buildings then as a professional body, we don’t have our own secretariat where we have our meeting, the one we started is abandoned, and we say we can advise people on how to develop their own land. There is no way we can convince the society because it will boil down to ‘physician heal thy self’.

So I told my colleagues that we are going to have some problems along the line because first, for you to build a house, you have to make sacrifices. Then I said these sacrifices will start from me, who is the head. If there were other areas that the association’s fund was being deployed to – like seminars, travels etc, – we are going to refocus into one direction .

The primary responsibility is going to be finance. I called the head of accounts and told him that please you might have problems with me if you don’t understand my philosophy, luckily he is working perfectly with me. We are on the right track. When I came on board, things changed. Formerly, when people travelled they were entitled to some things, I stopped that on my own. Even when I called them to my office and I sent them out for something official, I gave them my personal money.

You have been able to upgrade the surveyors’ association and have made a land mark in boosting the coffers of your association, what brought about this?
Prudence and accountability. When I came, I met a million naira in there but today we have over ten million within a year. How much do we pay? We pay four thousand per person and we have about four staff that we pay their salaries monthly, so for us to be able to do that within a year, you know what we would have passed through.

The building levy is there, as soon as people start paying things would have started up. Before we finish that ten million, definitely some funds would have started coming in. And I know that before we spend thirty to forty million, our secretariat would have been ready.

Within the system, we were able to understand that if we have to move forward we must work together. So I know that this period that we are going through now, with the appropriate orientation and sacrifices things will definitely change.