A press conference held on the 14th March, 2017 at the Ikeja Club, Ogba Lagos. Chartered Institute of Professional Printers of Nigeria (CIPPON) called on print stakeholders in the country to a press conference. This call was made by CIPPON President/ Chairman-In-Council, Mr. Wahab Aderemi Mohammed Lawal, in his opening speech addressing printing capacity in Nigeria has he expressed his disappointment in the INEC chairman, prof. Mahmood Yakubu who says “Nigerian printers do not have the capacity to print ballot paper’’ which prompted the press conference.
“Senator Emmanuel Uba gave his word that anything we want to do to take the printing industry forward they will give their full support and when it was time to swear-in the new INEC chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, we wrote a letter which was given to the senates, at the swearing-in everyone contributed to the discussion but when it got to the turn of the chairman to contribute the president said they are going to use only senate, therefore nothing was been said about CIPPON even though we had written letters and all the senates had a copy. I accused the P.A to the National Assembly Chairman that ‘‘none of your senators talked about CIPPON and you are a key players in CIPPON’’. We have tried every means to carry the new INEC chairman along with the activities of the institution and he is aware of the institution and the law that established it. The INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu refuses to listen to the act of parliament.
The INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu said “we do not have the capacity to print ballot papers” my question is, can a non-printer access the printing capacity?
Which of the printing capacity is the chairman referring to by saying we don’t have the capacity to print ballot papers?
By what system or method, under whose enquiry did he access this capacity in Nigeria before making this statement?
Who advised him? I believe there must be someone damaging the reputation of printers and CIPPON for their own personal selfish interest and I emphatically call them ROGUES, this is the right time to make our voice known. They give out contracts that can be handled by Nigerian printers to non-Nigerian printers and we have the facilities. I visited the Academy, the machines in print academy are lying idle without usage, the machines are not faulty but there are no contracts and they say we do not have the capacity. Let’s put regulation into practice.” says Mr. Wahab Aderemi Mohammed Lawal.
Quite a number of stakeholders aired their views in respect to the ridiculing statement made by the INEC chairman. How can he say there is no capacity and they keep awarding huge contracts to printers outside the country, if those contracts are awarded in our own country it will develop our own capacity, they are only killing our own economy by awarding the contracts to other countries. Even if they want to award the contracts to foreigners, they should ask them to come and set up their businesses here just to build our economy.
In summary, after all contributions and plans on next actions, CIPPON and stakeholders agreed not to be quiet because it’s government. Nigerian printing has the capacity to do INEC jobs and the people undermining us have no knowledge of printing, they know nothing. The year ballot papers were printed outside Nigeria and the papers wasn’t sufficient; more copies were printed in Nigeria within 2-3weeks and now they say we don’t have the capacity to print ballot papers? It is important to correct the negative notion about Nigerian printers.
After the press conference a Meeting was held on the 22nd of March between selected printers and INEC Chairman, Subsequent to the CIPPON press conference held on Tuesday 14th of March. This meeting was coordinated and facilitated by Alhaji Yahya Amfani, CEO, Yaliam Press Limited, Abuja.