The Institute of Safety Professionals of Nigeria (ISPON) says it will step up enforcement of safety compliance across industries, targeting individuals who fail to meet its required standards.
The institute’s President, Mr Timothy Iwuagwu, said this on Tuesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
He stressed that the compliance included people with fake certificates, noting that according to the ISPON Act, it was an offence for a person who is not registered by the institute to practice.
He said that offenders were liable to punishment.
Iwuagwu revealed that the institute had a decade-long lapse in enforcement, but resumed efforts in 2024 and planned to intensify them this year, 2025.
“We informed the police of our desire to effectively commence enforcement of safety compliance across industries to check individuals who are practicing within specification.
“This compliance includes people with fake certificates. The ISPON Act says that it is an offence for a person who is not registered by the institute to practice and offenders are liable to punishment.
“A lot of people working in the safety department of organisations are practicing as safety professionals without being registered with the professional body,” he said.
The president said that in 2024, the institute unveiled jingles in three languages – Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa, to create awareness against fraudsters using ISPON’s name to run trainings and issue fake certificates.
Iwuagwu said that he also notified management of key industries, ministries, departments and agencies to send every certificate to the institute for verification due to the proliferation of forged certificates across the country.
“If this is not checked, it has implications on industrial safety and national security as a whole.
“The ability to identify hazards will give you the ability to prevent accidents which if not checked, will lead to loss of lives and property, as the case may be.
“For example, we experience explosions in gas companies because non-safety professionals are overseeing safety critical responsibilities in such organisations,” he said.
Iwuagwu noted that the frequent occurrences of national grid failure in the country could be linked to a lack of well thought-out analysis which could point out the reasons why this issue persists.
“Although, this may be as a result of incompetence, negligence or sabotage among other issues.
“However, we at ISPON know that a lot of people occupying safety positions are not safety professionals because if they were, we will not be having repetitions or these problems.
“That is why the compliance enforcement has commenced in earnest and will be intensified in 2025,” Iwuagwu said.
He added that his team was at the Force Criminal Department in Abuja to present certificates to officers to flag off the compliance enforcement. (NAN)
