Director General of Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Dr Adebowale A. Adedokun has advised members of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) to ensure they are technically sound and politically minded in deploying procurement in driving national development
Adedokun, who gave the advice when he hosted the leadership of the NSE in his office in Abuja, said that engineers had a critical role to play in the success of procurement, stating that “the failure of procurement is failure of Engineering.”
The visit by the NSE leadership was aimed at strengthening the partnership between BPP and NSE to foster transparency, efficiency and accountability in procurement processes for national development.
Adedokun commended the leadership of the society (both past and present) as well as the entire membership of the NSE for the roles they had played from the outset in the evolvement of procurement reforms.
He noted in particular the invaluable contributions of the pioneer DG of the Bureau, Engineer Emeka Eze, who is a fellow of the NSE.
Adedokun commended the leadership of the NSE for taking steps to renew the age-long relationship that had existed between the BPP and the society.
He stated that the renewal of relationship was a call to duty for the NSE to partner BPP in championing professionalisation and eliminating low quality projects and quackery in the system.
In addition, the DG appealed for closed networking between engineering and procurement, urging engineers to take a step further by getting involved in policy making.
He proposed the setting up of a team to fashion out a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), in the shortest time possible, that would undergird the collaboration between BPP and NSE.
Adedokun took the opportunity of the visit to recommend that fresh graduates of Engineering should be encouraged to deliberately seek career in the public service, and not to envision public service as a last resort.
He said that BPP was championing professionalization and sector-based procurement, whereby the “Bureau gives policies and guidelines that address issues in different sectors; championing capacity building, as opportunity will be given to all categories of professionals for training in order to key into the self-paced or self-directed online training.”
Adedokun stated that BPP had produced seventeen (17) Revised Standard Bidding Documents (SBDs) which were available online and encouraged engineers and other professional bodies to study the documents.
He solicited the support of NSE in terms of engineering estimates and the use of costing unit of NSE to reach out to BPP on legitimate costing, synergize with the Bureau, and use their existing structure and pool resources together to carry out joint procurement audit, monitoring and evaluation which could be cost effective. He encouraged the innovations and adoption of technology and the use of data analytics to drive the activities and operations as he urged engineers to be more political minded.
The outgoing President of the NSE, Engr. Margaret Oguntala, expressed her gratitude for the re-awakening and renewal of the long-standing relationship between BPP and NSE.
She said that procurement was engineering-dependent, stressing that there was no way any country could move forward without involving engineers in procurement.
Oguntala said that the NSE was seeking a working relationship with BPP to deliver on the mandate of the Bureau to drive excellence, as the role of procurement in engineering could not be overstated.
She disclosed some challenges faced by NSE, especially the gap between education and industry due to paucity of funds.
Oguntala encouraged the enrolment of young engineering graduates from SIWES for internship after graduation; and called on the public to desist from the practice of engaging non engineers into key areas that were meant to be handled by professionals.
Signed
Zira Zakka Nagga
Head of Public Relations (BPP)
10th July, 2025
