Immediate past Minister of Power, Professor Chinedu Ositadinma Nebo, has said that the recent improvement in power sector is former President Goodluck Jonathan’s labour and not the ‘body language’ of incumbent President Mohammadu Buhari as some are quick to express.
Nebo, who was Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Oye-Ekiti, (FUOYE) Ekiti State, before he was appointed by Jonathan to man the nation’s power sector, also spoke about other issues and ways the current administration can leap-frog in power generation and distribution. He spoke with journalists in Ikole-Ekiti where he had been conferred with honourary title of Ateyese of Egbeoba kingdom by Elekole, Oba
Ajibade Fasiku, for his immnese contributions to the development of the town whille he was vice chancellor of FUOYE, Excerpts:
About two and half years after leaving the office of Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) where you had impacted on the lives of Ekiti people, you were conferred with Atayese of Ikole-Ekiti land, what does this mean to you?
I really don’t know whether to call it a recognition or chieftaincy title, even though there is a title to it. I feel gratified and extremely happy that the people of Ikole apppreciate the work that I did while serving as Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Oye Ekiti, (FUOYE). Of course the University has two campuses, one at Oye and the other at Ikole. And I did everything possible to be even, and even-handed with the distribution of facilities, faculties, programmes and things like that for the two campuses of the university, and the Ikole people felt that they were not left out. So, I feel very happy that even now that I’m no longer in office, they chose to recognise me. You know the thing with us in Nigeria is that once you leave office and become ex- this or ex that, people no longer take recognition of you. They feel that you have expired, but Ikole people don’t think that I’ve expired and they decided to go ahead and recognise me, for which I’m very grateful.
Some have identified diversity as one of our major problems in developing Nigeria, what is your take?
I do think that diversity is crucial to survival and striving. If you become monotonous in anything, it is so easy to burn out and run out of line, but if there is diversity, intellectual diversity, cultural diversity, bio diversity, orientational diversity as the case may be, and even religiuos diversity, you see that people are stronger and better formed out. I’m an all Nigerian kid anyway; I was born in Kafanchan, but because my father worked with the Nigerian Railyway Corporation, from Kafanchan, he was transfered to Ibadan and so I started my kindergarten, Primary one and two schooling in Ibadan. Then went back to Kafanchan to do primary 3 and 4 and then he was transfered to Port Harcourt where I did my primary 5 and 6. Before the war, I did my first two years in secondary school in Government College, Afi-kpo which was in Imo State, now Ebonyi State.
When the war came, I just did two more years after which I travelled to the United States of America where I did my first degree, Masters and PhD. So, you can see that I’ve traversed the entire country as a pupil and secondary school student. And I think one of the best things that has happened to this country is in those days when people could be transfered to any part of the country. There weren’t such barriers in those days as they are now. State of origin didn’t come into it. Till today, any document that I have signed and they ask me my state of birth, it is still Kafanchan, I don’t put Enugu, I don’t put Ude which is my hometown. I do put Kafanchan because that is where I was born. And I do hope that one day people would be allowed to be the real indigene of where they were born, not neccesarily of where their father or mother or grandfather were born.
So, I see the diversity that we have in Nigeria as a very strong point.
Still on the issue of diversity sir, why is it difficult for Nigeria to take advantage of that diversity for development?
…Because we are too ethnic. Eveybody wants it to be my kin, my brother, my sister and my brother. It wasn’t easy to be Vice Chancllor in Yoruba land because people thought that it was the wrong person that had come and that it should have been a Yoruba man. But if you realise it, it was very wise for the federal government to have sent me, I didn’t have any relative here, so I had no body to bother me. I had to just work. I didn’t have any communal clashes to wedge myself in, I didn’t have any distractions, all I did was work. And because I was here, I was able to reach out to people of other tribes of the country. You know if a Yoruba man has been here it is possible he would have been able to get only his own people around him. I had people from all tribes, Yoruba, Igbo, and also from the north.
And I believe that university, because it comes from the word universe, must be universal. It is not a locality, it is a university and so it should be for everybody. I think we don’t cultivate the habit of nationalism because we are too ethnic and that is the reason why we don’t do very well in reaserch, and in production, because since we are always looking for people who speak our language and then this whole thing about federal character, that everything must be balanced. Sometimes, it is good, sometimes it is bad. I also heard somebody complaining the other day that the north is heavily marginalised in the Super Eagles, so why don’t you put more people there? As if football or soccer or whatever depends on where you come from, no. We should put our best foot forward. Clanishness is what keeps us behind.
Many people don’t realise it, do you know that Federal University, Oye Ekiti, is rated bometrically number 16 in the whole country, above most of the federal and state universities? That is the trajectory upon which we put it and I have that commitment even when I’m away, I have to raise funds for the faculty of engineering and I will continue to work to mentor this university, because it is my baby and nobody can take that fact from me.
You visited the FUOYE Engineering faculty in Ikole when you were invited for the recognition, how would you rate the performance of the current V.C of the varsity?
The current administration is doing very well. If you go to the Faculty of Engineering at Ikole. You find out that 70 percent of all the universities in Nigeria do not have as much as the facilities that a brand new university like it has. So, if the current administration hadn’t continued with zeal and zest, it would not have happened. Do you know that FUOYE has the most elaborate, distingusihed universal engineering testing machine in all the universities. No other university in Nigeria has the type that the FUOYE campus in Ikole has. That is progress. In the humanity, social sciences, agriculture, there is also progress. But there is a national problem, that is funding. That problem affects not only FUOYE but also other federal universities in the country.
But I can say that so far so good, it’s being well managed. My concern is that this would continue. My dream before I was called to serve as minister was that I wanted to have a finishing school. I wanted FUOYE graduates to be able to hold their own. I said my students would not graduate and go for an interview and other people would beat them, I didn’t like that. I didn’t want that to happen, so I was going to start a finishing school to make sure that we polish the final year students so that by the time they step out of this university, they will confidently stand before anybody and do very well. And I hope the current administration goes on with that.
Nigerian universities have always been very far behind in global ranking, what can we do about this sir?
On global ranking, we are still way off. Nigerian university is not among the top 1000 in the world and that is very painful. To get there we need a lot more research, we need a lot more facilities in our laboratories, our machine shops, and in our workshops. There is no way we can ask a child to go and fight a lion and expect the child to come back alive. The lion would thank God for a breakfast or lunch. So, you don’t ask our universities to compete globally, when they have nothing with which to do it. But one way you can leap frog, is to ensure that our lecturers are better trained, that they are given more oppurtunity to improve themselves, acquire more skills, more didactic teaching skills and then do more reaserch and then for our students to be encouraged. In other words, challenged, I don’t believe that a lecturer should feel inferior if your student shows that he is better than you in some way. That is the way it should be. These students should be challenged, go to the internet, go to google, download information, come to class, challenge your teacher, because many lecturers are idle, many of them are lazy and lousy. They are teaching stale knowlege to these students and selling worthless hand-outs. So, our students should be pepped up, encouraged, any topic you get, go to google, dowload it, we have MIV, Harvard university, California Insititute of Technology, they now have open course webs and universities can get these materials free of charge and use the same materials that the best universities are using in the world, to teach your own students. These things are possible.
Some have attributed the body language of incumbent President Buhari as responsible for the recent improvement of the power supply, what is your take, considering that you mid-wived the privatisation excercise that has liberalised power distribution?
I don’t know the kind of body language that would turn around the system that took many years to put in place and change it. Nobody’s language did that. The fact is, those who were sabotaging the power sector decided to stop. Only God knows who was doing it before, because as we talk today, not a single bursting of the gas pipeline has occurred since president Buhari’s inception. So, if it is the body language that is making the haters and traitors of Nigeria to stop, glory be to God. But I don’t think so, I think it is sabotage, some people were orchestrating the sabotage because they didn’t like the previuos government and now that previous government is no more, they feel that that they have achieved their aim, because everything you are seeing today is a labour of the past adminsitration.
The current administration has not added any value to the current power situation in the country.
President Buhari has been vilified from several quarters, especially from your region, South-East of sidelining the IGbos in his appointments, what is your take sir?
There is the humour in everything,
If you want to calm tensions, I use to describe three or four types of caps: the type my Yoruba brother (pointing to a Yoruba man wearing a local cap) here is wearing is what I call the ‘OPC soldiarity’ cap, the type I used to wear I call it the ‘marginalisation’, and the type that our Hausa brothers use to wear we call it the ‘power shift’ cap. So I use to describe the various caps to depict the place where you are coming from. You see, the Igbos are essentially marginalised, there is no doubt about that but President Buhari hasn’t finished his appointments, and I believe that by and large, he is going to accommodate the Igbos in his appointment. So, I don’t think there is any reason for anybody to worry over Buhari. Of course, he might be slow in doing that but the Igbos should also realise that the government jobs is not the best . My thoughts, my ideas about my Ibo people is that we should rather be the Taiwan or Japan of Africa, by not looking up to the President for any such thing because we need to be in areas of our best capacity and I believe industrialisation is that area.
So, I believe that Buhari would eventually open the door for Ndigbos. Of course, you know that the Igbos did not vote for him during the elections, so slowing down in appointing them would be humanly understandable. But because he is the father of the whole nation now, we expect that he would open the doors for all . We are all Nigerians, whether you voted for me or not, come let us work together…and that is the way to build a formidable country.
As an immediate past helmsman of the country’s power sector, what area would you advise President Buhari to focus on in the sector?
President Buhari would do wonders in the sector if he promotes enbedded generation and also strengthens the transmission infrastructure. Each power plant takes years of gestation, three years, four years , five year six years to build a 25400 Mega Watts station, if you give 20, 20 mega watts , you can do 20 of them, 50 of them in one year. That is one thousand Mega Watts in a year. And you can do a hundred of them, 2000 Mega Watts in a year. So, Nigeria can leap frog by doing embedded generation and one advice that I wish to also to give is to change the requirment for licnsing from one Mega Watts to five Mega Watts (MW) so that no body should be asked to get a license if you he is generating only five or less MW, today, it is one MW and that doesn’t give a lot of incentives, some industries, they need 2 to 3 MW and they go through the process of licensing and that takes time, so if you fix it at five MW, it would make the country leap frog. So, I believe in embedded generation and the strengthening of the transmission infrastructure so that the power that is generated is easily transmitted. But embedded generation is something that is wonderful because you don’t need the transimission, it goes straight to distribution or it can be captive power where you just give to manufacturing clusters, agrucultural clusters, free trade zone clusters and things like that and you just give them power wihout any encumberances, so these are ways it could work. And that means that the President should very strongly support the privatisation exercise.
If invited to serve under Buhari, what would be your response sir!
Well, I’m not God. The body language that many are talking about does not indicate that they are looking for any of us. Many of us are getting jobs internationally but am not really interested. I think I have paid my dues, I have been Vice Chancellor twice in two federal universities, and the universities I headed are among the top 16 in this country. I have paid my dues, I have been minister of power and by the grace of God I helped to mide-wife the privatisation excercise that is improving the power sector now. I think I have done well. So, if I’m invited and I pray about it and the Lord gives me the lead, I would be happy to serve my country and I must be frank with you, I think I really deserve to be given time to do my own things now that I still have a lot of blood in my body, and strong enough to continue for several years. I should be allowed to set up my own company, you know, do things that I know would be better for the country, would help create jobs for the young people because I will never stop mentoring the young people. I will always mentor the young people, whether in engineering, the power sector or especially the academia.
What next would you be doing after serving as minister of power?
What I’m doing now is to set up an engineering consulting firm and I have been talking with international partners who are interested. And a lot of things we will do would have to do with the Niigeria power sector because I think one of the greatest ways of leap frogging in industrial revolution is to get better power supply and because I remember it was when I was minsiter for power that a new impetus was given to the Nebo Energy and I want to see the Nebo Energy to take on a very critical stand in the entire country I would like to help the government to achieve that and would also like to personally ensure that that happens because I know Nigeria would benefit tremendously from it and at the same time, because of my deep concern about the marginalisation of the poor Nigerian child whether in the village or rural areas or those who didn’t go to school where they are supposed to, I also want to be invloved in developing the educational curricular and developing technical digital, devices that would help young people be able to pass their school certificate well, be able to pass their JAMB well and be able to go to the university.
It is important to know what is your inspiration?
My inspiration is my Lord and saviuor Jesus Christ because He is the greatest mentor. Somebody who could pick up people who could have thought that they were worhtless and bring them to a place of global prominence as His apostles and disciples, that is mentoring and if you look at the Holy Bible, you would know that God, our heavenly father, mentors people, whether it is Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, or Daniel or Joseph or any of those prophets and even the kings who were obedient. So, mentoring I think is very critical because all of us need mentoring. You could be very bright but if you don’t have a mentor who would guide you. Mentors are catalysts that help the mentored get to the top. I like to see young people mentored. To the glory of God I have mentored many who have become Vice chancellors now. Many of those who worked with me while I was leading the varsities are now V.C themselves. These were people who were my right hands when I was serving and they have become V.Cs of universities not just in the ones I have served, and I give God the glory for that. And I have some in my field of engineering that I have mentored too. Some are also in the priesthood too. I am sure you know that some of those vibrant preachers in this country are engineers. Yes God is my inspiration and I think that one of the ways we can create a generation that is coming after us and would do better than we are doing now is to encourage them, and give them a shoulder they can lean on or a back they can climb on so that they can get their target.
The Sun.
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