Job Osazuwa
Members under the body of the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), South West, have been urged to always maintain the best practices and hold the profession’s codes of conduct dear to their hearts.
This was re-echoed during the association’s 40th anniversary, which took place in Lagos State.
At the event that was kick-started with a health walk on Awolowo Road, the Southwest zone chairman, Alhaji Ishola Lemomu Tajudeen, said his memebers would not relent in contributing itheir own quotas to the economic drive of Nigeria.
He said that the need for his members to live a healthy lifestyle cannot be over-emphasised. He added that sedentary lifestyle has sent many people to their early grave, hence, the walk.
On its roles to nation building, he said: “We are ready to assist the government and private sector, especially in the aspect of curbing corruption. We help in so many ways, such as auditing and financial reporting, which also helps in blocking wastages.”
The national president and chairman of council, ANAN, prof. Muhammad Mainoma, said attainment of 40 years could not have been possible without sticking to the rules of professionalism.
“In ANAN, you cannot talk about quackery because it is structured in such a way that you must meet up with certain requirements before you can be admitted. Our level of training is carefully designed in way that by the time you are through you can function optimally wherever you find yourself.
“You can only talk of quackery in a situation where when people are claiming what they are not, which is found virtually in all professions. When that happens, it is the duty of our security agents to apprehend and prosecute them,” he said.
Mainoma charged his members not to only remain professional but to continue to develop themselves in line with technological advancement.
He advised governments at all levels and private establishments to strengthen their financial control mechanisms so that it would become impossible for people to steal money. He stated that the accountants were in a better position to make this preventive measure possible.
At a dinner, which also took part at Ikeja area of the state, the guest lecturer, Mr. Michael Adebayo Ayeni, took a cursory look at how the association’s as well as how it has weathered different storms in the last four decades. He said there internal and external threats that were capable of sending the body into extinction.
He boasted that ANAN is not only an aclaimed professional accountancy organisation in Nigeria, but a renowned one across the globe, with an affiliation to well-known international bodies.
He added that the association has brought a number of remarkable innovations into the profession, such as introduction of mandatory continuing professional development; indigigenisation of the profession; foray into the African continent; impact on tertiary institutions and mineral resources accounting.
His words: “Practitioners should try as much as possible to integrate and form big partnership firms to engerder specialisation among the teaming partners and thus be able to compete effectively with the big players in the financial market.
“In the same vein, our members in academia should display integrity, rectitude and decorum in all their undertakings so that the name of the association will no be debased or ridiculed.”