APPOEMN creating wealth and building SMES on a wide scale -Gbemisola Ope
By Trek Africa Newspaper
APPOEMN- The Event Industry
The Nigerian event industry over the past decade has emerged as a very active and viable sector in the Nigerian economy with massive employment prospects in the execution of its peculiar services, creating wealth and building SME’s on a wide scale.
Given its huge impact on the Nigerian economy and the people, proper and deliberate recognition for its productive inputs in the development of our country is being advocated for by the event regulating body APPOEMN.
The Association of Professional Party Organizers and Event Managers of Nigeria, APPOEMN, has over the past few years been very active in the Nigerian labor market, as each single event provides prospects for a wide spectrum of services associated with events.
According to Gbemisola Ope, the president of the association “Events have always been a part of our culture and in the recent past it has received a sudden boost. Every event held improves lives daily in Nigeria with impeccable cultural showcasing, done through exotic production of events, from skilled workers to handymen on different levels”.
Lending her voice on the essence of celebration, as the fulcrum of organizing events, Public Relations officer of the association, Bose Abisagbo averred, “People will always celebrate; celebration itself is perhaps the most common thing we have in the world, crossing all barriers of race, religion, age, ethnicity, politics, economics, education and geography. We celebrate birth, achievement and milestones, life, death, discovery, victory, remembrance, history, patriotism, food, family to mention a few. So the industry is an important one, providing employment across many other sectors.”
The Event Industry has since the outbreak of coronavirus been under lockdown, as with numerous other businesses worldwide, a situation that has forced a reflection on novel ways of doing business, mostly virtual.
However, after a period of total lockdown, the government relaxed the ban, allowing businesses to operate within specific hours, with a curfew imposed to restrict movement from 10pm to 6am in Lagos, Ogun and Abuja.
At the briefing of the presidential task force (PTF) on COVID-19 on Monday, Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation and chairman of the PTF, announced that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved the relaxation of the ban for four weeks.
“The PTF submitted its recommendations and the PRESIDENT has approved the following for implementation over the next four weeks spanning 2nd – 29th June, 2020, subject to review.
“Cautious advance into the Second Phase of the national response to COVID-19; application of science and data to guide the targeting of areas of on-going high transmission of COVID-19 in the country;
“Mobilisation of all resources at State and Local Government levels to create public awareness on COVID 19 and improve compliance with non-pharmaceutical interventions within communities; sustenance of key non-pharmaceutical interventions that would apply nationwide and include: ban of gatherings of more than 20 people outside of a workplace;
Following recommendation from the PTF, the Lagos State Government rescinded its decision to relax the restriction on places of worship, the opening of which was earlier based on guidelines issued by the PTF and protocols agreed by state governments.
Banks however, were allowed from June 2, to operate within the normal working hours.
With the recent spike in cases of coronavirus in the country as with several other parts of the world, there’s mounting skepticism about the safety of re-opening schools and other business concerns that usually hold large number of people, as movements within states remain restricted.
