Not less than 60 staff of Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) are presently undergoing Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) training to improve service efficiency and delivery.
The Director-General of SON, Mr. Osita Aboloma, declared the training open in Enugu on Tuesday for its staff in the southern part of the country.
Represented by the Director of Human Resources of SON, Mallam Usman Abdullahi, the DG said the training aimed at empowering SON officials with skills’ set to relate well with Nigerians in the discharge of the agency’s mandates.
He added that it would also make staff to be professional and live above rudimentary mistakes while discharging their daily duties.
He said: “The essence of this training is to improve the capacity of staff to deliver quality services and improve their relationship skills as they discharge their daily duty.
“The training aims at exploring other avenues to solve issues that concerns enforcement of standards without necessarily going to the formal law courts.
“The SON Act as amended had given SON the mandate to prosecute those that go against its mandate; but, however, we feel that there should be other avenues that are not the courts, that SON can easily achieve the agency’s mandate.
“So, on this premise, SON is partnering with the Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators (ICMC) to train some of its staff on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).”
According to him, the training will be very beneficial both to the enforcement and office staff of the agency.
Also, a facilitator at the training, Ambassador Victor Ojaide, explained that the training would equip SON staff on the skills for effective and objective ADR practice.
Ojaide, who is also the Vice President (Training) of ICMC, said the training would provide tools to understand how to bring parties closer to settle issues in a harmonious manner.
According to him, “The ADR lessons will equip them on how to deal with issues and win trust and public confidence even as they discharge their duties.
“The training will teach better ways of approaching issues and people even as they carry out their official mandates.”
