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By Henry Uche
Nigeria is a multireligious state where people express so much faith and belief in their God or gods. Because of this ardent confidence, many Nigerians do not take risk management seriously and would treat risk-related issues with kid gloves, however risk remains a phenomenon that must not be relegated.
In this interview with a professional risk and hazards manager, Gus Wiggle, advised the incoming administration along with 36 State governors to embrace the concept of risk, hazards and crisis management for obvious reasons. To him, the world at large is fraught with perilous times, this is evident by the unprecedented socio-economic crises rocking the world. He spoke on a wide range of issues in the insurance industry.
What is the motive behind your advocacy for the office of risk management of the federation?
It’s high time we took risks, hazards and other crises management and compliance very seriously in Nigeria. So many things are happening in the world. We can all see it. I mean, unless we don’t want to tell ourselves the bitter truth. Coming to Nigeria, we need to be proactive. Some risks can be averted while others are unavoidable. But how we manage different categories of risk goes a long way to affecting our national well-being. What am I saying, just as we have the office of the Accountant-General, the office of the Auditor- General and others, we’re supposed to have the office of the Risk Management of the Federation which must be an expert in risk, hazards and crises management. Even the 36 states’ government should establish this desk. As we could see last year what damage floods did to many states in the country. Life and assets worth millions were destroyed.
Now NiMET and NEMA has again issued seasonal Climate Prediction and warning, what are the State and federal government doing with respect to this? Are people (especially farmers) sensitised to know exactly what to do? These are what we’re talking about, it doesn’t take much, it’s a matter of willingness of the executive arms of the federal and state governments to do the needful, and the such office is established and manned by experts because we’re talking about Life first which is paramount before properties. Though some States of the Federation have some sort of risk desks/ managers, with what happened last year (flooding), if we mishandle socio-economic risk and associated hazards, the consequences are always devastating. Developed economies don’t joke with risk management, especially those that affect the citizens across the board. So the incoming administration (whoever coming in) should take this seriously else we may keep suffering the result of reactiveness while other economies enjoy the benefits of being proactive in risk management. This Chief Risk Officer of the federation would coordinate the activities and affairs of the entire operations and ensure risk management is factored into every Ministry, Department and Agencies of government.
Why risk managers should be carried along in every government’s policies, programmes
Yes! With in-depth knowledge, it’s the risk managers that would foretell what would likely happen should another thing happens. Natural events must happen. Things we didn’t plan occur. Things may fall apart, when they happen, what do you do? We are human with imperfections. We need to say, ‘what if this happens or this doesn’t not happen ‘? ‘What if’. Many of us put risk factor in our personal Life and budgets. We have plan B, we prepare for the unexpected. So why can’t we conscientiously factor in risk management in our decision, plans, policies, programs and operations as a country? This would help to achieve set goals and save us a lot. In fact in the entire life cycle of every project and operations of government, risk managers are needed. All the incoming administrators should look into it seriously.
Why Risk Management should not be treated in Silos
It takes an Enterprise Risk Management Framework in an organization to fully realise the full benefits of Risk Management. Unlike the traditional approach where Risk Management efforts of individual departments are handled separately (in silos) without recourse to the overall impact of each on the entire organization.
This approach results in late response as mitigating strategies are not promptly initiated by the leadership of the organizations due to lack of coordination of the identified issues and documents of risks from different departments. The advent of Chief Risk Officers (CROs) has made the design, integration, and implementation of enterprise-wide Risk Management frameworks possible. This ensures a centralized and proper coordination of an organizations Risk Management strategies, supervision, and identification procedures. The latest bank that failed in the America, SVB didn’t have a CRO for 7 months before their collapse. Could it be why they collapsed, it may just have been part of the reasons.
Benefits of incorporating risk management in the affairs of the states and federal government?
The benefits are enormous. It saves us a whole lot. You can’t even imagine it. Risk and compliance Manager identify, monitor, control and give experts opinion when and where necessary. They do this in order to minimize the negative impact they may have on an organization or the country at large. Every resources you can think of that would be wasted (don’t forget Life too), if we don’t prepare as a country -conscious of risk and hazard, would be saved. When you plan for any eventuality, you are not carried away or overwhelmed by any apparent catastrophe. Whatever incident or accident that may occur, the risk managers handle them squarely. We don’t lose anything by planning and preparing for contingencies.
Does it mean Nigerians do not factor risk into their…(cuts in)
No, Nigerians I know do take cognizance of risk factor in what they do even on daily basis. Business men of all categories do think of risk. It is only those who do not know anything about risk that ignore the place of risk management and compliance. Any persons, groups or government who jettison the idea of factoring risk management into its corporate strategies is sitting on a bombshell. Here we are talking about the government, proactiveness to risk management is a saving tool, safe for the country in such a precarious time we find ourselves. Something must happen either positive or negative. If the positive happens, we thanks God, if the negative happens as envisaged we handle it comfortably because we’re prepared. In many climes, risk management desk is compulsory in every establishment both private and public organizations. Risk Management is a whole lot to not only talk about but to do something about. And Institutions of higher learning should give it a top priority (though Insurance is under risk management) being a course of study in many Universities in Nigeria, however it should be encouraged by everyone and a thorough / comprehensive knowledge must be impacted in the students studying it, because the world today needs more of risk, hazards and crises management experts.
