The battle for ISPON has gone beyond Iwuagwu versus Udezi. It is now a test of whether Nigerian safety professionals are prepared to rescue their own institution.
There is something deeply ironic about the crisis consuming the Institute of Safety Professionals of Nigeria (ISPON).
We are safety professionals.
We tell organisations to identify hazards early. We preach prevention. We demand accountability. We teach management systems, governance, leadership commitment, root-cause analysis and corrective action.
Yet for years, we have watched one of the biggest institutional hazards within our own profession grow almost uncontrollably.
Its name is the ISPON leadership crisis.
And at the centre of the latest chapter are two men: Engr. Timothy Iwuagwu and Chief Dr. Stephen Udezi.
But perhaps the Nigerian safety profession has made a fundamental mistake.
We have spent too much time asking:
Is Iwuagwu the legitimate President?
Or:
Is Udezi the legitimate President?
The question we should now be asking is:
Are either of these camps still capable of putting ISPON above themselves?
Because an institution created to advance safety professionalism in Nigeria increasingly appears trapped in an endless cycle of rival leadership claims, litigation, expulsions, counterclaims, rival structures, public accusations and competing interpretations of legitimacy.
Enough.
Iwuagwu: The Man Many Love to Attack
Let us start with Timothy Iwuagwu.
Whatever his opponents think of him, dismissing him as a man with nothing to contribute would be intellectually dishonest.
Iwuagwu has remained one of the most visible personalities in this crisis.
He talks, he writes, he engages, he proposes ideas, he pushes his interpretation of the ISPON Act.
He speaks about enforcement, professional standards, public safety awareness, government collaboration and strengthening the regulatory relevance of ISPON.
His public presence has also made him an easy target.
When Iwuagwu speaks, people know what he thinks. When he takes a position, it is usually unmistakable. His public interventions attract supporters, critics and sometimes heated exchanges over ISPON’s legitimacy.
But he has ideas.
And some of those ideas deserve to be heard.
His background also deserves context. Iwuagwu spent decades in the Nigerian Navy before retiring and moving fully into professional safety practice.
Perhaps that experience partly shaped the disciplined, forceful and sometimes confrontational leadership persona the public sees today.
But military command is different from professional association leadership.
A professional institution cannot permanently operate like a command structure.
Members are not troops, critics are not enemies, questions are not insubordination and disagreement is not mutiny.
If Iwuagwu wants history to remember him as somebody who helped rescue ISPON rather than somebody who fought endlessly to control it, then his greatest challenge may not be proving that he has ideas.
It may be demonstrating that he can accommodate people who disagree with him.
Leadership requires more than courage, it requires restraint, it requires consensus.
And sometimes leadership requires knowing when to relinquish control.
But Is Udezi Really the Alternative Or Something Worse?
This is where the conversation becomes even more uncomfortable.
Many people who oppose Timothy Iwuagwu appear to assume that the Udezi-led faction must therefore represent the better alternative.
But does it?
In fact, when one looks beyond the personalities and examines the governance questions being raised within the profession, there is an argument that the Udezi-led structure may represent an even more troubling model of leadership.
At least Iwuagwu is visible.
You may disagree with him. You may dislike his methods. You may consider his communication combative. You may strongly oppose his interpretation of the ISPON crisis.
But he speaks, he writes, he responds, he puts his ideas into the public space, he allows people to know what he thinks ISPON should become and because he is visible, he can also be challenged publicly.
That does not automatically make his leadership good.
But visibility creates a measure of accountability.
The deeper concern about the Udezi-led structure is different.
Professionals have complained about insufficient openness, limited engagement and a leadership culture they perceive as closed.
Whether every criticism is justified or not, the perception itself should worry an institution that claims to represent safety professionals nationally.
Where are the opportunities for professionals to challenge the leadership without immediately being perceived as belonging to another faction?
Where is the visibility that allows ordinary members to understand how their institution is being governed?
A professional institution cannot simply announce decisions to its members.
It must engage them.
And this is why the thought of merely replacing Iwuagwu with Udezi does not resolve ISPON’s fundamental problem.
It could simply replace one form of authoritarianism with another.
Perhaps an even less visible one.
Authoritarianism Without the Noise Is Still Authoritarianism
Iwuagwu’s perceived authoritarian tendencies are easier to identify because his style is public, forceful and confrontational.
The Udezi structure appears quieter.
But quietness should never be confused with openness.
An institution can be authoritarian without shouting.
It can exercise control through closed decision-making.
It can marginalise dissent without public confrontation.
It can concentrate authority among a small circle while maintaining the outward appearance of stability.
And that may ultimately be more dangerous because there is less public scrutiny of how decisions are actually being made.
This is why the Nigerian safety profession should resist the temptation to conclude:
“Iwuagwu is the problem; therefore Udezi must be the solution.”
That reasoning is far too simplistic.
If professionals cannot freely question leadership, something is wrong.
If branches begin operating like personal territories, something is wrong.
If important institutional decisions are made without sufficient consultation, something is wrong.
If members cannot easily see how their institution is governed, something is wrong.
And if leadership appears more interested in controlling ISPON than opening ISPON, something is seriously wrong.
Is This About ISPON — Or About Control?
This is perhaps the most difficult question the Udezi-led leadership must answer.
What exactly is the objective?
Is it to rebuild ISPON?
Or to control ISPON?
If the objective is institutional rebuilding, transparency should not be frightening.
If the objective is professional unity, leadership should be willing to subject itself to independent verification.
If the objective is service, then nobody should be afraid of an independently audited accounts, independently reviewed branch structures and an independently supervised election.
But when control becomes more important than openness, institutions gradually stop belonging to their members.
They begin belonging to small circles around leadership.
That must never be allowed to happen to ISPON.
Ego Cannot Become a Governance Model
To be continued…..
NB: Until the court decides the case now before it, ISPON has no recognized President. Two factions remain.
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