NCA has contributed immensely to Nigeria's economic growth: Full version of an exclusive Interview with Dr. Kayode Fasua, DG NCA

 

Dr. Kayode Fasua, Director-General, Nigerian College of Accountancy (NCA) in an exclusive Interview with African Drum

Dr. Kayode Olushola Fasua is the Director- General of the Nigerian College of Accountancy (NCA). The College (which is located in Kwall, Bassa LGA of Plateau State) is the training arm of the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN). In his tenure as the head of this prestigious Institution in Nigeria and one of its kind in the whole world, Dr. Fasua has recorded imprints of achievements and sets in motion, a number of programs geared toward making the College, a top-rated Professional Institution. In this interview with JOSEPH A. ADUDU, Dr. Fasua narrates the significance of the Institution to Nigeria. Please, enjoy the excerpts.

African Drum: Sir, What has been the significance and contribution of the Nigerian College of Accountancy to Nigeria's economic growth?

Dr. Fasua: The fact is that, there can be no economic growth without the Accountant. And so, the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria ANAN, which is the mother body of the Nigerian College of Accountancy (NCA) has actually been playing its part in the economic development in Nigeria. The ANAN is one of the two statutorily recognized professional Accountancy Organizations in Nigeria. ANAN is a member of Accountancy Body in West Africa. It's a member of Pan Africa Federation of Accountants (that's the Africa body of Accountants). As a matter of fact, not just a member but Board Member. ANAN is also a strong member of International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) which is the World Body of Accountants. In Nigeria, ANAN is a Board Member of the Accountancy Body of Nigeria known as Association of Professional Body in Nigeria (APBN). So,  by extension, ANAN has been contributing its quota as an Accountant body to the economic development in Nigeria. This is simply because, ANAN produces Accountants who mann the finances and funds of the Nigerian nation from the local, state and federal levels. Consequently, the Accountant-General of the Federation, the Minister of Finance are ANAN members. 70-80 percent of Accountants-General and Auditors-General of states government as well as Auditors-General for local government in Nigeria are ANAN members. Therefore, you would agree with me that the finances of this country are practically being managed by ANAN at the local, state and federal government levels respectively. And by extension, ANAN has been contributing to the economic growth in Nigeria.

The fact is that ANAN is everywhere because all the personalities holding the above mentioned offices including Directors of Finance and many others all passed through the College of Accountancy. Now you can understand the significance of the College because you cannot become ANAN member except you pass through the College. Again, it might interest you to know that it's only ANAN that has a College of Accountancy and we call it "Accounting Village" It's a place where people cone from all parts of the country and we put them under a period of 9 months for the full-time program or 21 months for the part-time program. These are people coming from different backgrounds and have equally attended different tertiary Institutions all meet here for purpose of professionalism. And within the periods stipulated above, they are professionalized and when they finished from the College, they write ANAN examination. When they qualified, they get inducted as  members of ANAN and become professional Accountants. Thereafter, they put to active use the knowledge they have acquired in the college in their various ministries, organizations and establishment, thereby, contributing to economic development.

Dr. Kayode Fasua

African Drum: Taking the above into cognizance, It is therefore right to say that the Accountant is responsible for any rot, corrupt act or financial mismanagement in any ministry, establishment or organization?

Dr. Fasua: (laughs).... I have envisaged this question because that has always been the perception by the society and it's unfortunate that people always put the problem of corruption on the shoulder of the Accountant. The truth is that without the involvement of an Accountant, there can be no fraud so to say because the CEO would always want to use an Accountant. However, the rot in our system, the problem of corruption is not entirely an Accountant problem. It's systemic. It's a problem we should all owned up to and must work toward mitigating it otherwise, we would all be consumed by it. The issue of corruption in the system should be everybody's concerned just like the issue of security that is everybody's business. Recall that before now, the thinking was that security issue was entirely a police and other security agents' affairs until we were almost overwhelmed by insurgency, banditry and other security challenges. Because rather than looking at the security challenges as a collective responsibility, we were busy apportioning blames on our security agents while the perpetrators were having a field day and expanding in their nefarious acts. In like manner, corruption should be the concern of everybody and not just the problem of the Accountant. In any case, Accountants are doing their best just as security agents are also doing to tackle insecurity. Accountants are doing their best by carrying their functions in line with the ethics of the profession. But this is not to say that all Accountants are saint because you have bad eggs among them just as there are bad eggs in every profession. My take is that we must all put our hands on deck so as to fight the ills of corruption and all other rots in the system. I have said it time without number. I am an optimist and I am positive that we will soon get out of the wood.

African Drum: ANAN has been granted license to operate a University, but for purpose of clarity; would ANAN upgrade the College to that status or it intends to operate the University separately?

Dr. Fasua: Thank you very much for this question. As I said earlier, the NCA is the training arm of ANAN. The NCA is an establishment of the law under section 2 (1) (d) of the Association of Accountants of Nigeria Law. By that, the College cannot just be subsurmed under a University. So, as it currently is, the NCA is existing while the ANAN University is equally existing, but both Institutions belong to ANAN. The University has its Ag. Vice Chancellor in person of Prof. Musa Inuwa Fodio and other principal officers (Bursar, Registrar, Dean of facilities and many others), just as the College is operating fully. However, the truth remains that it is the College that ANAN was able to used to get the University in place. So, we are presently running side by side. If you look around, you would notice some infrastructure being put in place and I tell you that within a year or thereabout, there is going to be a clear separation between the two Institutions. The College compound is situated on 148 hectares of land and by the NUC requirement, a University should have a minimum of 100 hectares of land. Therefore, what ANAN has decided to do is to carve out 100 hectares of land for the University while the College keeps the remaining 48 hectares. Our existing structures would belong to the University and so, the College would rebuild its own structures.  Consequently, all the new structures you see around are for the College and within the next one year, they would all be in place. You would also notice that we have already started building a fence for demarcation preparatory for the next NUC visitation because by its rule, NUC does not allow two Institutions in same compound except one is a subsidiary of the other. In this case, the College is not a subsidiary of the University. The College is saddled with the responsibility of producing professional Accountants. It takes-in graduates of Accounting and Allied courses for professionalism while the University is in place for pure undergraduate academic excercise or programs. But there might be possibility of crossover from the University to the College for purpose of professionalism and from the College to the University for Postgraduate studies.

African Drum: What has been your major challenge since you assumed office as the DG of the College?

Dr Fasua: To be frank with you, finances have been my major challenge. I have been a management staff of the College  for over 20 years before I became the DG. When the office of the DG was declared vacant, I applied and attended the interview and when I was eventually appointed, I already knew what was on ground because I had deep knowledge of the system. And as I said earlier, the major problem here is funding because we don't get funding from Government, either State or Federal. The funds we make use of are generated  from the payment of fees by students and from other internal activities. Secondly, the insecurity in Plateau State has been another challenge but I thank God that despite this, we never had an issue involving our students or the College itself. We have also tried as much as possible to ensure that we have good relationship with the host community. Within the last three years, we have been able to do a lot of things for the host community. We have also been in constant touch with the Bra gwe Irigwe ( the paramount ruler of Rigwe nation) and other leaders of the community.

We have equally deployed massive Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities for the community within the last three years. We have been able to dig about three boreholes, we have renovated schools, we built an ultra modern modern clinic too. And as far as I am concerned, it's the best Primary Heath Center in Plateau State. I want you to go round and see how that facility was built. It's really built to taste. There is a separate staff Quarters, separate Dispensary, separate Laboratory in addition to the main facility. Again, I must tell you that we didn't just built but we furnished the staff Quarters and equipped the Centre with medical facilities and drugs.  In December 2021, we have been able to clothed 800 orphans and 80 widows. Currently, we are embarking on another project which is the renovation of a primary school that is extremely delipatated. We noticed it last year and we promised to embark on its renovation this year and we really hope to rebuild and furnish it before March.

 I am happy to say that as we do all these, the community equally recognize and appreciates our efforts and that has fostered harmonious coexistence. It may also interest you to know that the neighbouring Fon community also recognized and appreciated what we are doing here and honoured the DG with a Chieftaincy title of "Davou Vwang" and as I earlier said, all in appreciation of what we are doing. 

African Drum: What has been your achievements in the last three years as DG?

Dr. Fasua: Our achievements have been massive. When I came in, I made up my mind to make my staff comfortable, make them happy because they are the ones who would do the job. Today, I am happy because my staff are happy. We are one family here. I have adopted a concept of management called, "management by wandering or management by walking around". I go to all offices, talk to staff directly and that gingers and motivates them. Staff equally walk into my office without hindrance to tell me of their problems and observations and I must tell you that most of the successes my administration has recorded is as result of suggestions from the staff. So, if there was no open up, the staff would have bottled up and kept their suggestions to themselves. Secondly, when I came in, I insisted we must digitalized and computerized our operations and we have been able to achieve that. We started from the admission process in which our forms are sold online, candidates equally fill the forms online and get admitted and pay tuition fees online. No candidate needs to come to the school regarding admission process because everything is now done online.

The only thing that is physically done is collection of Identification (ID) card for purpose of verification. We also deploy lectures online. As a matter of fact, we are the first professional body in Nigeria that started deploying lectures online even before many universities. My I.T personnel  couldn't believe we can do it when I suggested the idea to him after speaking to a friend in New Zealand who told me that the practice was en vogue there. Moreso,  with the COVID-19 pandemic. But I insisted, I told him nothing is impossible and before you know it, we trained our staff, students and I must tell you that online lectures is one thing that has made me what I am in NCA. In addition, we do online workshops, (though in most cases, it's both physical and online). However, the ultimate and most interesting thing is that we commenced online examination in January this year. I can authoritatively tell you that everything in NCA has been digitalized and this has made our operations smooth and better. For our part-time students who don't want to come for physical capture in the school, we innovated and decided to start having "Regional Physical Registration" in the six geopolitical zones of the country and we have done that all through last year. The physical infrastructure and physical development have also been massive. There is virtually no building on campus (including the Cafeteria) that has not been touched in the last three years. Take a look at our offices, we have made them world class standard just to ensure that our staff are comfortable.

There is an in-house magazine which we have been able to not resuscitate but up the ante and improved its quality.We have also floated a Public Lecture and we have had three editions in the last three years. The first Guest lecturer of the 1st Public lecture was Professor Bob Osazie from the University of Benin, the  guest lecturer of the 2nd  Public Lecture was Prof. Sheikh Ahmed Abdallah, former minister of agriculture and the guest lecturer for our 3rd Lecture was Prof. Nkemdili Nnonyelu of the Nnmadi Azikiwe University. All the lectures were massively attended and a communique was issued to the public at the end of every Lecture. We have also mounted a professional workshop for our students in that only practitioners in Accounting come to talk to them for about two weeks. We would be having the 3rd edition of the workshop between now and March this year.

 

Dr. Fasua

We are extremely visible on social media too: twitter, facebook, instagram and other social media platforms. And with this development, we have been able to receive feedback and suggestions from the public and that has helped us immensely. On the road network, we talked to the Government about the delipatated nature of the road which prompted the maintenance of the road from Vom junction to this place. The whole project would have long been completed but for the incessant crises that has engulfed this area. I wouldn't blame the governor because people would not know what he has done regarding this construction. About three years ago when we came on board, Government was working on the road from Farin Lamba to Vom junction. Part of the road was being done and the crisis erupted which disrupted progress because the governor had to call members of the community and told them the work cannot continue until the fight is stopped. Unfortunately, there was no truce between the warring factions and the governor had to completely stopped the work. Of course, people cannot work under attacks. However, the current President of ANAN paid a courtesy visit on the governor in November last year. That visit led to the maintenance of the road from the junction to the school. But we are still discussing with government. I must tell you sincerely from my mind that Gov. Lalong has done so much for us and I am positive he would complete the project before his tenure elapsed.

African Drum:  This lead us to the next question, how has been your relationship with the Plateau State Government?

Dr. Fasua: We have an excellent relationship with the Plateau State Government in the last three years like we've never had before. I have express access to the Governor. I talk to him anytime the need arises, more so that both of us play Golf. Governor Lalong has been so nice to us and the way and manner he considers ANAN activities and gives attention to the College, you would be surprised that he is a lawyer and not an Accountant. As a matter of fact, the immediate past and current Presidents of ANAN always have access to the Governor.

Lalong always gives ANAN reception whenever there is a need. There was a time we had foreign visitors from the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) who came to see the Nigerian College of Accountancy. The Chief Operating Officer of IFAC Alter Pristine and her team came to Nigeria and down to the College. And according to her, what they saw amazed them. She further testified that she has been to almost everywhere in the world regarding Accounting profession but never seen what she saw here. She commissioned our clinic (which is of global standard) and had interactions with the students.

But the point I am driving at is that; before they arrived Nigeria, ANAN contacted His Execllency, Rt. Hon. Simon Lalong and intimated him about the visitors and asked him, what can you do for us? Do you know that the Governor gave us the Presidential Lodge? Aside that, a day before the visitors departed, he hosted us to a state Banquet. It may also interest you to know that we are the only Institution that wrote examination physically during COVID coutersy the Governor. However, it took us a period of five weeks to examined the 6,000 students which ordinarily, would have taken just two weeks but it had to take us that long in strick compliance and adherance to COVID protocols. But the fact is that the Governor allowed us to conduct the excercise unlike what happened in other states where their Governors didn't allow us conduct the examination. Also, the SSG, Prof. Danladi Atu has been a mentor to us and I also want to put on record that his doors are always opened for me to see him. He has equally been advising and guiding me on series of issues. He has been of tremendous help to me I must say.

Dr. Fasua, DG NCA

In a nutshell, Plateau State Government has been very helpful to ANAN and I must say I am a lucky man that the College is having this kind of excellent and robust relationship with the Government of Plateau during my tenure as DG.

African Drum: Thank you for your time sir.

Dr. Fasua: Thank you too.

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