Dr Kabir Kabo Usman, the Director-General, Centre for Management Development (CMD), has been in the saddle at the nation’s foremost human resources management outfit, created by the Federal Government under Act No 51 of 1976.
However, Nigeria is yet to achieve optimum human capital development as glib quacks with briefcase companies have been masquerading as trainers and management consultants while the CMD with an annual budget of N28million has been buffeted by various challenges.
Speaking in an interview with our correspondent, CMD’s boss who rendered account of his stewardship in the last few years said the Centre is making meaningful impact that would make his tenure and exit in less than one year from now a crucial chapter in Nigeria’s quest for human capital development.
“I could remember on the 8th of January, 2010, when the Minister (of National Planning, Dr Shamsuddeen Usman) said, “You have been appointed the Director General! Go and transform the Centre for Management Development.” That was a very big challenge for me because I need to think in terms of a strategic plan, possibly a three-year plan or a five-year plan to get to the destination of the Centre,” he recounted.
Usman who also doubles as the member of the Governing Board and Pro Chancellor of African Business School (ABS) is one of the fully accredited leading independent Business Schools in Africa, while thankful for the opportunity to serve at the highest level of CMD, said he met some challenges when he took over the helms of affairs but nonetheless remains eternally grateful for contributing his bit.
“There were quite a lot of things I had to focus on. And I was trying my best to keep it simple. I said well, looking at the current situation, there might be about six key areas of my own interest to contribute my quota to transform the Centre and make it world class.”
One of the first tasks he tackled headlong was staff development. To do that he had to undertake staff skills audit to ascertain their competences and capabilities.
“We discovered there were capacity gaps, skills shortage areas and we really have to work very hard with a lot of my members of the team, with particular reference to very key directors. We have gone round the country to try to look for collaboration and partnerships particularly with relevant agencies that are coming to support us; from the UNDP, Chinese Counsellor and USAID, DFID, EU and others.”
To reposition the Centre, he also had to look at its mandate as well as the Act of the Council (National Council for Management Development).
“Part of our critical mandate is to advise the Minister of Budget and National Planning and we also have to make sure that there is quality assurance put in place about training in Nigeria in areas of management development in the country,” he stressed.
“So that is what we had to do in the areas of addressing that to make sure that the Centre is relevant and is producing the result that is enshrined in our mandate.”
Besides, he also had to establish zonal offices across the six geopolitical zones including: Makurdi, Kano, Gombe, Uyo, Owerri as well as Ibadan.
“We also looked at CMD Office in Lagos and we made it operational. We brought in a lot of (activities) work. We did training for the Nigeria Police Force. We also had workshops and trainings about public private partnership, procurement, strategic leadership and middle management in terms of manpower.”
According to him, upon critical assessment of the Centre, the management realised that the five departments were inadequate hence had to increase them to eight departments.
Justifying the rationale for the increase, the Kano-state born technocrat said, this became necessary “Because we needed ICT so that we can improve the quality of methodology in terms of trainings in the e-learning platforms.”
The Centre, he recalled, also looked at the accreditation of all management consultants operating in the country with a view to sieve those doing legit businesses to the quacks.
“We have trained at least one thousand management consultants from 2010 to date and they are certified. For the Management Development Institutions and also the consultants that are operating across the country; we trained and certified over two hundred of them. So that they are doing the correct things and there are certain benchmark that is comparable to international standard. We work together with the International Standard of Americas and the ones in Europe to make sure that we are delivering training in that level.”
