Bature Makes History At NIESV

Paul Ojenagbon

History has been made in the annals of leadership of the “noble colleagues’ landed profession” following the emergence of ESV Mallam Bature Ali Muhammad, FNIVS, as the 27th President of the Nigerian Instituition of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV).

It is  indeed a well deserved position earned purely by merit, dint of hard work and astute professional excellence espoused over the years in his professional practice and through the rising trajectory of leadership in NIESV.

Interestingly, he hails from Kaduna state and is the first NIESV President of Northern origin in the 57 years history of the Institution.

 Bature is an eminently qualified and immensely experienced estate surveyor and valuer who boasts impressive academic and professional accomplishments garnered through the years. He is currently pursuing a PH.D (in view) in Leadership and Strategic Studies at the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA),Kaduna. Prior to this, he had bagged three Master’s degrees in related fields.

Aside NIESV, he is an associate member of several relevant professional bodies.

Bature had earlier honed his management skills in various professional involvements and distinguished himself in several key roles and capacities as he ascended  the ladder of leadership in NIESV, culminating in his  rise to the penultimate assignment as the 1st Vice  President of NIESV which by a silent agreement adhered to over the years is the heir apparent to the Institution’s throne. Before then, he was Chairman of several key Committees of NIESV  which showed his versatility and the diversity of his professional disposition.

Bature runs a thriving professional practice as the Principal Consultant, Bature Mohammed & Co, based in Kaduna.

The new NIESV helmsman is stepping into the exalted Institution’s leadership office at a crucial moment of the Instituition’s history, well equipped and prepared for the new role, giving his immediate attention to the barrage of deep seated issues that have already mounted on his new table.

The positive thing is that  he is already familiar with most of these issues and would have  forged a solution template for them. Some of these issues  include the infiltration into estate agency by non estate surveyors and valuers, advocacy for the Office of the Valuer General of the Federation and the incursions of engineers and other professionals into valuation that’s a core professional function of the estate surveyor and valuer.

Perhaps, the most worrisome is the limited recognition by the government at the various  levels of certain roles and functions of estate surveyors and valuers. Recently, in January, the Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation officially inaugurated a 5-man  Land Use and Allocation Committee comprising the Surveyor General of the Federation, three Land Surveyors and  one quantity surveyor.The estate surveyor who is a key professional in the land procurement process was blatantly excluded.

Admittedly, estate surveying is still a relatively young profession in Nigeria. Many Nigerians, even amongst the elite class cannot tell the difference between the functions of an estate surveyor, land surveyor and quantity surveyor. Many don’t know what an estate surveyor does other than just being an estate agent. Indeed, in Nigeria’s pidgin parlance, some would simply say “surveyor na surveyor “, but it is not so. Therefore, the Bature presidency has much to do to continue the enlightenment campaign until most educated Nigerians, not just those in the major cities, know what an estate surveyor and valuer does.

One ready handicap of the profession is the relatively few numbers of  estate surveying professionals on  the landscape compared with the older professions that are in hundreds of thousands and so wield much influence to skew government policies to favour their own professions through their positions of power.

The Institution still lacks this political clout. There are not many estate surveyors in the system to champion the cause of the profession and to accord its pride of place in governmental affairs. For example, the Instituition has never had a member who became the Minister of Works, Housing & Environment or even just Housing as a sole Ministry where the estate surveyors’ input would be impactful because of his specialist training. The new NIESV President or his firm might even have been a victim of some of these systemic prejudices that estate surveyors suffer in their daily practice. This is enough to spur him into action although it won’t happen overnight.

Bature would be up to a flying start in office with his clearly outlined vision  and mission statement.

Hopefully, the Bature presidency would rise up quickly to galvanise the vibrancy to a profession long asking for a change in the entire polity to accommodate its treasured role in the system. With Bature, NIESV couldn’t ask for more.