THE President of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), Mr Tony Agenmonmen, has lamented the lukewarm attitude of members to the institute’s activities, noting that out of over 10,000 nominal members, only a negligible 1,400 are financially active in the institute.
Making this disclosure at an interactive session with the media in Lagos, recently, the NIMN boss argued that in spite of the waivers given to members by the present administration on assumption of office, last year, only a very few actually utilised the opportunity of the waivers.
Agenmonmen, however, stressed the determination of the institute to enforce the provision of the NIMN Act, which mandates marketing professionals and marketing-related organisations in Nigeria to obtain practice license from the institution.
He argued that professionals who engaged in marketing practice in Nigeria without registering with NIMN are clearly in violation of the NIMN Act No 25 of 2003, noting that the responsibility for compliance rests on both the individuals and the companies that employ them.
“Section 20(2) of the Act states: If on or after the coming into force of this Act, any person who is not a member of the institute practices or holds himself out to practice as a marketer for, or in expectation of reward or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description, implying that he is in practice as a marketer, he commits and offence,” he argued.
As a way of encouraging such erring members to comply with the provision of the law, he added that the institute had created a window of opportunity for a special Fast Tracked Executive membership programme, designed to cover all categories of membership, including associate, full member and fellow.
The NIMN president noted that this development was in line with the institution’s preference for non-use of force in driving compliance.
“Our approach to compliance is to avoid the use of force, except this is a very last resort. We are convinced that it is in the collective interest of all true marketing professionals and marketing organisations to support the effort to ensure that only true and qualified marketers, practice marketing,” Agenmonmen said.
At the expiration of the grace period, the NIMN President noted that a comprehensive register of marketing practitioners, including organisations that have registered and therefore are in compliance will be published.
“By January 2018, it will be compulsory for all companies recruiting into their marketing departments to indicate membership of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria as a mandatory requirement in addition to other qualification for employment,” Agenmonmen said.