Project management: Panacea to desired change in Nigeria

By Muhammad Jiya

It was not a coincidence but sheer providence that the swearing in of President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and 36 state governors with their deputies coincided with completion of a course on “The Best Practices of Project Management”, which was organised by the Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme (MTCP) and Multimedia College (MMC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia between May 11 and 29, 2015. The participants were drawn from seven developing nations.

The MTCP is a programme that forms part of the commitment of the Malaysian government towards the promotion of technical cooperation among developing countries, strengthening of regional and sub-regional cooperation, as well as nurturing collective self-reliance among developing countries. Many Nigerians have benefited from the programme.
As the only participant from Nigeria and the whole of Africa at the course, I deem it an obligation to share the knowledge therefrom, especially given the new government at the federal and state levels.

While we agree that the alarming rate of project failures in Nigeria is largely due to corruption, we cannot also dispute the fact that lack of good project management skills and ethics that conform to global best practices also contribute a great deal to project failure in Nigeria. Now that the government wants to tackle corruption, the hydra-headed monster militating against the development of the country, it should establish a holistic culture of imbibing the best practices of project management in executing its projects and programmes. In many cases, government officials and management of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) who are the project sponsors are well intentioned but lack of adherence to basic principles of project management by those entrusted in delivering the projects usually lead to poor execution or sometimes outright failure of such projects.

Project management is a skill needed not only by the project manager but also by all the project stakeholders in order to ensure successful implementation of projects. Project management is the planning, scheduling and controlling the project activities to meet project objectives. Therefore, the executive arm of government at different levels should ensure that before embarking on projects, project management procedures and policies using global best practices are instituted to guard against project failure, which has been the major source of waste of scarce resources of the country.
Similarly, the knowledge of “Best Practices of Project Management” is also very important to the legislative arm of governments who have the statutory responsibility of legislative oversight over the MDAs. They have the power to review, monitor and supervise agencies, programmes, activities and policy implementation of the executive arm of government. This can only be effectively done if they are equipped with knowledge and skills that will enable them to monitor projects from the initiation stages to the closure. Getting such knowledge will not only help them discharge their duties effectively but also save the nation from failed projects.

Our visit to Menara TM (the Headquarters of Telecom Malaysia) a 60-storey building that strikes the perfect balance between inspirational architecture and state-of-the-art facilities and subsequent visits to Multimedia University (MMU) and  Multimedia College (MMC) both subsidiary of TM made me sad and  depressed for my beloved country Nigeria. As a former staff of Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) I became envious because both TM and NITEL share the same history. Both of them were government owned telecommunication companies that enjoyed a monopoly of providing fixed lines telephone services over a long period of time. Both of them were privatized at certain period to make them more effective and to be able to compete in the telecommunication revolution occasioned by GSM. The only sad story while one had its privatisation successful and is now telecom giant even acquiring other private mobile telecom operators, the other was unlucky its privatisation has been marred by controversies leaving the former telecom giant to be trailing behind other operators in Nigeria. This again is a typical case that necessitates best practices in Project Management. The same process that made TM successful brought NITEL to its present predicament.

At MMU and MMC, while they were telling us good stories of the graduates they have produced in telecom engineering and other related fields I was just thinking of our NITEL Training Schools in Lagos and Kano, the institutions that will have by now been awarding degrees and diplomas in engineering, information technology, etc.

Participants of the MTCP MMC 2015 Course on “The Best Practices of Project Management” include; Mrs. Sirigunlaya Ruangamnart and Kiattisak Muenphaen from Thailand, Renato C. Bequillo and Ferdinand D. Sevilla from Philippine, Shafqat Abbas from Pakistan, Mrs. Chocho Win  from Myanmar, Mrs. Chansamai Phommachan and Phathipsavanh Thammavongsa from Laos Peoples Democratic Republic (PDR), Gafurjan Ibragimov from Uzbekistan and Muhammad Jiya from Nigeria who was elected as the Great President of 7 Great Nations during the three weeks course.
The new administration should insist on strict adherence to laid down principles of project management by all MDAs. Governments should establish independent projects monitoring units headed by project management experts reporting directly to the executives.

This will provide checks and balances, enabling the executives to have accurate project status reports at any point in time because experience has shown than project managers always try to give positive reports of the projects they are handling irrespective of issues, delays and risks in the projects. We pray to the Almighty Lord to give President Buhari more wisdom to change Nigeria than He gave Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad who was agent of change in Malaysia. Malaysia got its independence just three years before Nigeria from the same colonial master, Britain, but the difference in development between the two countries is more than several years.

Jiya is a manager with Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), Abuja. Email: [email protected] or [email protected] or +2348033524944, +2348072525705