The Nigeria Institute of Management (NIM) President Sir. Peter Edeoghon said that management practice can help set  the country on the right part, if government is ready to embrace the tenets of management practice. Among other things, he tries to draw a line connecting  Management and Administration, Princewill Ekwujuru reports.

What do you think is responsible for the spate of violence, kidnaping in parts of Nigeria?
Corruption leads to violence, if there is violence in the land corruption is the source of mass violence, because violence results from people whose needs are not met, who are frustrated, because those who hold our resources due not manage it for there well being. The end product of corruption, corruption leads to poor infrastructure, we see all over Nigeria. Contracts are awarded we don’t see them implemented. It will get to a time where, I wouldn’t call it  isolation, it is something like that now.

If Obama went to Ghana and he did not come to Nigeria. He gave his reason, very clear, and I think everybody needs to see reason with him. When the isolatory situation starts to happen, I believe that our leaders should think twice. It is unfortunate we have a political system for now, that will not allow us have a clean break from corruption but I believe that; even kidnapping for instance, should not be on our land, when it started they were targeting people whom they said had our resources and denying us the use of those resources.

But it has gone out of hand now  to gross criminality, but i believe that in the course of time, a lot of things had to happen.  The effect has to be listened to, I read papers a lot, and I do a lot of research, if Nigeria is to be run by what we read in newspaper, we should be an eldorado nation by now.
Enough has been putten, even on your own side too, I am sure your not relenting in projecting those who want to tell the truth in this country, that is the way I look at the issue of corruption.

But on own side,  our members would be punished even if you are in the public service and we know you erred, we will call you, unless you have been visited by sufficient penalty and punishment, by the state, but if that has not been done, we will query such persons.
How many of such people have your institute  queried?

The ones we know that is within our fold we have done for, the one that we know happen within the institute, we have done for three, because we have our training programme. And somebody puts up the NIM as if it is a programme of the NIM, but we later leant that the money goes to the pocket of the individual. We got the person, we got his brochure, we sat him down, we instigated, but, because it was  the first time, we gave a warning, but told him that next time we will go to the next level, which is go to the tribunal.

Most times institutes design courses that are not relevant to fields, in such a way  that they become useful in terms of application, management works at different levels, like you pointed out that these institute cuts across professionals, how do you design your courses, do you use the same principle to teach managers; for instance from religious background and manager from the  hospitals, media, so how do you design your courses at NIM to reflect and prepare them well enough to engage the challenges in the various sectors?

At the very first level, what we do, we teach general principles of strategy for instance, planning, programming, budgeting and the rest of it, but if it is a residential course, mid way, you are asked to project this into your own area of endeavour. And we apply those principles, try to make you use them the way it will work for you, Now at the end of the day we put all these things together. We call upon you to make a presentation your own presentation of how it affects you, even as a media man, you must plan, you must execute your plan, you lay strategies for achieving this plan In the cause of doing that, you will be teaching others, teaching yourself, how that thing relates to you. It is a kind of interactive. In our course,

we don’t just go and pour out the lecture and go away. It has to be interactive. You see in the process of doing that, you bring your peculiar circumstance into the matter and you we go practical, that is if you do you paper, and when you are going, it is put in programme where others will also have your own presentation, while you have other peoples own too. This is for accountants,  if we are talking about finance, as I already said, this is another encounter on how to teach you how to manage your finances, you need to use your own circumstance as an  input data to create an understanding, your own understanding  on how to apply this principles. Talking about your newspaper,  your newsrealm, when to order, for instance there is a re-order quantity level in inventory management.

You can build that in the managing drugs in the hospital, the managing your newspaper print and the rest of it. The same principle, In air ticketing, you build up a principle for knowing when your tickets are due  for re-ordering. So these are things that we teach there, the principles are quite alright, but we will make you work the principle and see how it relates to you. In the process, if you come back to your  organisation, you come back with a refreshed mind, and so we know there is a difference in you by the time you get back from this programme..

One can not just take one programme and take it as something which must be like that, but when you ask this question, you just asked, is either you open up the programme to you areas of relevance to your own profession.  As I say in programmes where I work with Vetenary Doctors, medical Doctors, media men, like the one we went to in Manchester , somebody from one of the television houses was there with us. And of course, they are quite happy they went through that course.

How many youth coppers can your institute train, and how do they get to be on it, Is it that you do it all over the country, how do you get it done. Before they become graduate members what does it take them and how would this help them?

The last annual conference we had in Abuja, we got a Ghanian who lectures in Manchester to give a lecture on leadership, we had two thousand managers that attended that course.  He ended the lecture by asking. If we have five minutes to live in this world what we like to take with us.?  By the time he finished the lecture the delegates asked me if we will have the programme for senators, or whether the institute was going to bring back the facilitator.

He gave even in Ghana, people that ran down Ghana Airways , he even treated the so called fanaty religion, those people have fellowship every morning, before they start their day, in the main time according him, the man has the most expensive night with a woman with $20 million which disappeared from the account of Ghana Airways in Washington DC. And after that, he was very down to earth with everybody , may be what we should do to ensure that we reach out to more people to attend this our conference. It going to take place from the 27-29th  September, 2009.

For the youth coppers, during their orientation, we send people to the orientation camps to introduce the programme to them, we them a one hour lecture and we give out the form, we do it all over Nigeria. We have over 70 study centres in the country in every state we have three study centres, in every senatorial district, we identify   university or where they can learn, and those people close to that centre will attend the weekend lecture. It has very wide coverage across Nigeria, and when they  have done the exam, it takes about five batches of induction to get them their certificate, because, we can not just call them to one place, we do it in Abuja, Enugu and Lagos, and at every induction programme not less than three thousand ex-youth coppers are clamouring to get their certificates.

And as I said, the last one in Lagos, I remember, one of them came with the shoes she made her self, as a result of what we taught them at school. I know of somebody who borrowed N35, 000 to attend our programme, today, he manufactures cosmetics, and he was even telling some of the coppers that he will take them as sales agent.  The interaction with youths has been very helpful, like I said, it is working. The coverage is very through.
There is this contraction between  Administration and Management, what are the differences?

This division came from the dichotomy between the public and private sector. In the private sector we call it Administration, but in recent years, the public sector has also adopted this phrase of Management, that is why when you reach Director’s level in the government you are doing managerial work. Administration is the details of implementing what has been decided, but then, Administration can also make decisions, is just the procedures, that is what I see as Administration is concerned, but,  it is been that, it is more pronounced with the civil servant, then people in the private sector, but by the end of the day,  we are all manage. At every level management occurs that is the way I look at it, there is  no really serious differences between them, just that it is a matter of process, as a manager you most decide, as a manager you must also administer, you supervise the administration of a matter on which you have already made a decision. So it is very difficult to say is one clean line, but, I l have  to write a paper on public administration , I never worked in a civil service, I had to buy books and all that, and I find out that it is a matter of bureaucracy, that is more pronounced when talking about administration, but one thing with bureaucracy, although people think that you  loss time. it is very enduring, you don’t loss anything, go to a tax office today, if you pay your tax ten years ago, go to tax office tell them to pick up your file, because their system is enduring, you can into an office, within two minutes, they got my file I was surprised.

As far as this question of Administration is concerned, there is no serious differences, just that somebody uses one method, that has to do with government law and regulation and the others. The other one uses the method of planning, strategy and management all the same. But I do know that before Yayale Ahmed left the office of Head of service, he insisted that every Director must be a member of the institute, because he found out that at that level you must some initiative as a manager, as a manager you can swerve position with another profession even at that level, because you are dealing with the permanent secretary and the Minister, and this days, government is also strategizing to ensure that we do government business in more efficient manner. It is a matter of perfection, you come from the public sector you call it administration. We come from the private sector we call it management.   Y