The desire to formulate standard is an intent by a profession to work within a defined and agreed rules and guidelines for improved safety, product quality and service delivery.

Here in Nigeria, we believe we can thrive and profit more where there is no standard and this may not be far from the truth for those that undermines standards. Lack of standard undermines product and service quality and also clients’ safety and satisfaction.

There are several Institutions and bodies from different countries of the world bandying different standards.

However, in all there is a convergent point. The European community has been able to harmonize its standards in practically all fields of endeavor and USA will naturally key in while independently setting a parallel and higher standards for herself.

The most important and generally accepted electrical engineering standard is that of International Electro -Technical Commission, IEC.

Every country of the world is expected to domicile these standards. In doing so, the underline and basic element remains unchanged with only minor variation to meet the country’s environmental condition, cultural and social needs.

Countries subscribe to the Commission with offices of the president and secretary to administer the operations. In Nigeria, the National Electro-Technical Committee, NEC contact office is at Standard Organization of Nigeria, SON, Lagos. Their operation is ad hoc.

Apart from IEC, The International Bureau of Weights and Measures, BIPM is subscribed by nations of the world as well.

Nigeria lost it lower cadet membership due to her inability to sustain her commitment. Member countries are expected to establish the National Metrology Institute in their countries.

NMI in every country handles basic elements of Time and Frequency, Mass, Electricity, Chemistry, Thermometry, Ionizing Radiation, Length and Photometry and Radiometry which are referenced to BIPM in France.

The establishment of the lab is under construction at Ogba, Ikeja, Lagos. The project is counter funded by UNIDO.

It was abandoned for many years but work has resumed and is in progress. The ground breaking ceremony was done recently by Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, secretary to the Federal Government.

SON currently uses a mini or makeshift Metrology Lab pending when the one at Ikeja is commissioned.

The lab will aid in instrument certifications mismanaged by local firms and also save billions of naira in such services rendered by overseas companies. This will greatly enhance service delivery in the country.

However, standard formulation is not the responsibility of SON; they only coordinate or facilitate such process for stakeholders because stakeholders have failed to take up this responsibility in fashioning out standards.

Persons who are concerned about safety, quality of product and services in a particular field and have found the need to address and uphold it are usually the initiators.

They will craft the draft and send it to SON. SON will forward it to all stakeholders for input. The document is worked on till final document agreeable to all is produced and adopted.  The document is reviewed from time to time. SON is doing good job filling this gap for all.

The challenges of formulating standards are enormous leaving us as a profession without engineering standards.

Standards formulation requires concerted efforts from stakeholders. The following amount to some of the reasons why standard formulation is a challenge;

Attitudinal: Anything that will regulate our life, change our thinking and the way we do things are usually resisted whether it is for good or bad.

Standard is resisted by politicians, engineering personnel, quacks and everyone benefitting from the status quo.

Documentation: Formulation of standard is a product of research and documented experience. Because field experiences are not documented, experts most time do not logically buttress their positions and draw conclusion on issue of standard.

It is always, even more so, difficult to identify these experts who may sometime not affiliate with professional bodies. They carve a niche for themselves and do their works unnoticed thus, ending up with the years of undocumented industrial experience. When issues on standard are discussed, they seem to be left out for comments and inputs. Documented field experience is the basis for standard formulation.

Academic: There is usually an erroneous belief that the university professor is best suited to develop standard. The truth is the end user; the craftsman, technician, technologist and allied professionals make more inputs than any other. When they are not trained to document their job process the result remain what we have now.

However, we cannot ignore the work of subjecting these field experiences to scientific analysis to produce result which can stand up to close inspection as done by the academic. The academic must also have a tinge of field experience to enhance his work. There must be empirical evidence to support his results. This is grossly lacking.

Funding: Research requires funding but many in this part of world believe it should be sacrificial and selfless. Funding can come from government, corporate organizations, NGOs, Institution itself etc. It is very important to note that every Institution or professional body is supposed to be self- sustaining. Professional bodies build capacity through due, levy and donation.

When we join foreign professional bodies (there is nothing wrong about that if we are equally committed to the local body here) we fund their research with our annual dues, levies and donations. They develop and continue to improve those standards we have to subscribe to. IEC has over 2000 electrical standards which are not cheap to subscribe.

If we have to domicile just 10 of such standards the cost could be enormous for an Institution that has no sustainable income to bear.  The cost of working the document by all stakeholders to become an acceptable standard to domicile will have to be included to determine the total and real cost for such an exercise.

Indigenous Technology: We must develop our technology, apply the standards so formulated to it and gradually enlarge and expand it. When we import engineering equipment from different countries, they come with different technical standards of country of origin.

This has made Nigeria a pool of technical standards without any standard. Engineering practice in Nigeria is in disarray, completely comatose by lack of standards and the many Original Equipment Manufacturers, OEM, from Asia, Europe and America will continue to dump their products here with their standards.

Since standard is a global issue we can align ourselves to IEC’s standard to produce our standard and that is expected of every nation like us.

Intellectual laxity: There seem to be intellectual laxity and lack of focus concerning this issue. Companies where draft copy of the documents are forwarded to as stakeholders for comment and input, sometimes keep it for use and make no input.

You can rightly say they have nothing to contribute because there is no documented experience or better still are not interested about developing another standard that will not be in tangent to their products standards.

Haven highlighted this, wide spread and coordinated approach is needed to address this problem. While the Nigerian Society of Engineers through its Codes and Standards Committee is playing its part, the Divisions or Institutions under it have greater roles to play.

Standards formulations require the involvement of all cadets of engineering personnel and the present engineering structures or Institutions should evolve with capacity to accommodate all so as to enable professionals at all level to be identified to address the problem of engineering standards in the country.

Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, COREN whose responsibilities include regulating, monitoring and control of engineering practice will have to continue to wait till these standards are ready for it to function effectively.

Engineer Akan Michael is the chairman, Nigerian Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (NIEEE) Lagos Chapter. He can be reached via [email protected]