UNIZIK Business School Launches £100,000 Engineering Grant Project

By Praise Chinecherem

The Business School of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State has launched the Higher Education Partnerships in Sub-Saharan Africa (HEP SSA) ’22/24 programme established and funded by Royal Academy of Engineering, United Kingdom.

The £100,000 grant award is an international collaboration project targeted at building on research and innovation capacity of engineering students of higher education institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa and stimulating ties with industry to increase the scale of impact.

The program titled: ‘Catalysing the Employability and Entrepreneurial Impact of Nigerian Graduate Engineers in the Electricity Industry as a Strategic Way to Improve Access to Electricity in Nigeria’ is also aimed at improving engineering capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa by enhancing the knowledge, skills, capacity and employability of African engineering graduates.

Speaking while launching the project, Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Charles Esimone explained that the project is at the core of development in Nigeria and Africa with prevalent key human capacity issues.

He expressed optimism that the project would help to bridge the gap between the town and gown to enable students become self-reliant after graduation. 

“We assure the project benefactors that the university would continue to provide enabling environment and supportive atmosphere to ensure a fruitful collaboration. 

“We have never failed, and we will not fail in this project because it is not in our character”, he assured.

Earlier, team lead, Dr. Onyeizugbe said the project was informed by a renewed emphasis on production for export, as well as to address structural issues necessary to stimulate the economy and drive the much desired diversification and industrialisation efforts.

He said, “The grant award is aimed at improving engineering capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa by enhancing the knowledge, skills, capacity and employability of African engineering graduates; build on the research and innovation capacity of engineering students of higher education institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa and stimulate ties with industry to increase the scale of impact.

“Following Nigeria’s grossly insufficient electric power generation and even more abysmal transmission and distribution statistics, it remains commonplace and in fact, is now accepted as conventional wisdom, for businesses of all kinds and sizes to have alternate power supply arrangements, usually in form of petrol or diesel-powered electricity generating sets, which they often have to put to use in order to keep their doors open and continue providing their goods and services.”

Lamenting poor and non-existent access to electricity for large part of the nation’s 200 million strong population, Onyeizugbe expressed fears that Nigeria’s erratic public power supply could spell doom and disconnection from civilisation for businesses.

“With rising costs of goods across the board due to spiraling inflation, even those who have electricity generating sets for home power supply may soon be forced to decide between eating and seeing at night. Others do not even have the luxury of such options”, he decried.

Assuring judicious use of the grant, the team lead called on Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Bank of Industry (BoI), the Anambra Small Business Agency (ASBA) and other bodies to explore the possibility of gaining access to funds for achieving the objective of making self-employed entrepreneurs of Nigerian Graduate Engineers.

“The awardees will work with UBS, United Kingdom Partners: Teesside University of Middlesbrough TS1 3BA and V-Lab Limited; Higher institutions partners: Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam; Abia State Polytechnic, Aba, and Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, Imo State; Industry Partners: Enugu Electricity Distribution Company PLC; Fedironics Limited and Century Power Limited; Professional Partners: Nigeria Society of Engineers, Awka Branch, among others,” he hinted.

Also speaking, the Programme Manager, Royal Academy of Engineering, Melina San Martin described the project as topical, saying it would affect Africa especially West Africa where only 42 per cent have access to electricity supply.

She assured the Academy’s unalloyed support in case of any challenge in the programme execution.

She said, “The project which is of high quality will boost economic activities as world leaders are making efforts to achieve electricity sufficiency by the year 2030. 

“We need electricity in our lives in order to access clean water, quality healthcare, education and so on

“Electricity is a fundamental human right, and the project is very important to us because it works for everyone. Successful execution of the project will help to solve local and national issues culminating in economic and social development.”

UBS Director, Prof. Emma Okoye explained that the programme was supported by the Anglo-American Group Foundation and the UK Government, stressing that the pilot scheme had been successfully tested under the Enriching Engineering Education Programme (EEEP) in 2016.

He commended Onyeizugbe and Ifediora for their effort in driving the research endeavour, expressing hope that the project would address numerous engineering skills deficit in Africa.

Ifediora, in a vote of thanks expressed optimism that the outcome of the project would be commercialised to increase the employability skills of graduates, while assuring his high commitment to the programme execution.

One of the proposed players in the programme execution, Prof. Solomon Nwigbo, promised to ensure that the project follows international best practices and established principles.

Other foreign partners who spoke at the launching were Vishak Dudhee of V-Lab and Dr. Vladimir Vukovic, a senior reserach lecturer in BIM and energy reduction in built environment of Teesside University expressed optimism that the partnership would be a robust one.