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By Omodele Adigun
“The height attained by successful people”, says an adage, “is not by a sudden flight!” This seemed to be the admonition of the Auditor General of Lagos State, Mrs Morenike Deile, to young professionals recently in Lagos.
According to her, the usual focus of most young and new entrant professionals is to compete with the big league players for the existing clients who were nurtured and managed by those big players. She explained that If it were possible for them, they would push aside these big players and snatched their clients.
But going spiritual, as if to say do not wear yourselves out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint, as the Holy Bible warns, Mrs Deile, who was the Special Guest of Honour at the 44th Induction Ceremony of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), urged the inductees, in her keynote address, to break new grounds , cultivate and also nurture new clients as the sky is big enough to accommodate all birds.
Giving tips on how this could be achieved, she states:
” The Nigerian states look saturated and simply, there are no jobs. But amid this choke, many people arriving our borders are thriving. The experience is from COVID 19 pandemic. It has created a lot of other areas where people are not looking towards.”
In this piece, she sheds more light:
New normal
I want to congratulate CITN for keeping faith with its human resource development agenda to meet the dire need of our failing economy in spite of the pandemic that engulfed the entire world in the last one year and disrupted all spheres of life and ushered in the hitherto unknown new normal. I want to believe that your embrace of technology must have aided your ability to fulfill the desire of your numerous students, some of whom are here today to be inducted as the associate members of the institute.
In line with this code, it behoves on you to ensure that your service to your clients is always a win-win situation between your clients and the state, individual states and at the national level. At the long run, the tax revenue will define all as a country and also people.
Breaking grounds
The Nigerian states look saturated and, simply, there are no jobs. But amid this choke, many people arriving our borders are thriving. The experience is from COVID 19 pandemic. It has created a lot of other areas where people are not looking towards. The whole situation has changed. So I expect a lot of things from us as professionals. The usual focus of most young and fledgling new entrant professionals is to shove you and compete with the big league players for the existing clients who were nurtured and currently managed by those big league players. But my admonition to you is to look beyond this. Currently, most governments have a new traction of their eligible tax payers in their tax net. Lagos State is an example. And it would be good, and enduring and rewarding business to bring clients from the hitherto uncaptured areas and bring them into the tax net. That one is a work for those just coming in. What I am saying is that you don’t compete with the big players that are on the field. There are others areas that are untapped that you should look into.
Tax app
As new entrants who want to become relevant and blossom, you must see your induction as the beginning and continue to seek requisite knowledge for survival of professionals in the new world order. Or else, you wake up one day and find out that one fintech has created an app that will demystify your current skill in spite of your induction and send us into economic extinction, which I don’t pray for. Therefore I urge you to embrace technology as it unfolds. Whether we like it or not. I expect you to equally embrace continuous professional development. I also encourage you to embrace growth mindset; I encourage you also to embrace self discipline and this is where our characters, gimmicks, our relationships come to play.
