Peeping at Research and Development Centre: NAERLS Presents 2017 Agricultural Performance in Nigeria II

Peeping at Research and Development Centre: NAERLS Presents 2017 Agricultural Performance in Nigeria II

As presented in the first part of this article, National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS) is under the auspices of two organizations - FMARD and ABU. This symbiotic relationship of the two organizations brings out the best out of NAERLS. Thus, NAERLS personnel have the opportunity to interface with both undergraduate and postgraduate students of ABU in teaching and research activities. Similarly, the personnel are involved in agricultural extension activities thereby interfacing with field staff of the 37 ADPs across the nation. Consequently, there is no conflict of interests between the two supervisory bodies of NAERLS as they are achieving their goals. While FMARD is achieving agricultural extension policy and direction through NAERLS, ABU uses both the human resources and infrastructure of NAERLS for teaching, learning and community services. So much has been said on NAERLS and its distinctive position among the National Agricultural Research Institutes in the country. Now, let us go back to the questions; what are the contents of the APS report? How can these findings help Nigeria achieve food security?

The APS report is 245 – page document segmented into Executive Summary, Introduction, Methodology and Findings. The objectives of the APS are crops performance assessment during the 2017 wet season; production forecasts; identification of constraints to increased agricultural productivity and effective extension delivery service. The APS is also aimed at providing feedbacks on field situation and farmers’ problems to research Institutes and policy makers for improved research and policy performance. The methodology of the APS involved the use of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) technique. This includes questionnaire/checklists administration, farm visits/observations, interviews with farmers and Ministry/ADP officials /reports of technology review meetings. A total of Twenty multi-disciplinary teams of three scientists each constituting 60 scientists conducted the survey across the 36 States, Federal establishments and Federal Capital Territory. In each state, two communities were selected from two LGAs in two selected agricultural zones for field evaluation. From each community, five farmers were interviewed in addition to focused group discussions held at every site. In all, interactions were held with 674 individual farmers and 74 different farmers groups.  Data capture from the farmers was done electronically using Android Tablets. Extensive discussions were also held with the ADP staff, ministry officials and staff of other relevant agencies. Final wrap-up sessions to validate the data generated and findings were held at the end of the exercise with officials of the State ADP and Ministry of Agriculture.

Primary and secondary data collected were analyzed using simple statistics. To forecast the 2017 crops yield, adjusted land area/output estimates of 2015 were used as base figures in computing percentage changes in the areas devoted to various crops and applied in conjunction with Report of NPFS, document from Strategic Development Initiatives and reports of respective ADPs to generate outputs forecast for 2017 for each state. Yield figures from 24 model sample plots linked to Decision Support Agricultural Information Tools (DSAT) were used to correct forecast of average yields from each states to generate the output forecasts for 2017

The findings of the 2017 APS are startling and revealing as they show our vulnerability, as a nation to food shortage.  The findings in the APS report cover over 200 pages of the entire 245 – page document, which makes it difficult to be showcased in this Column. However, some important highlights and their implication to food security are presented herein. The first is the crop production of the various agricultural commodities. Crops production estimates for fifteen staple crops were made. Maize is the second most important cereal crop produced in Nigeria after rice. The total estimated land area devoted for maize production in in 2017 was about 5,960,920 ha, which indicated an increase of 8.70 % compared to 2016 estimate (5,484,060 ha). Nationally, maize production increased from 10,813,980 metric tons to 12,107.580 metric tons in 2017 representing about 11.96 % increase. A national average yield of 2.03 ton/ha was recorded in 2016 compared to 2.10 ton/ha recorded for maize yield in 2017. A national average yield of 2.0 tons per hectare recorded in 2017 is very low compared to more than 20 tons per hectare obtainable in Europe and USA.  Another important commodity is rice as is consumed in almost all households in the country. The crop is grown in all the states of the federation. The total estimated land area devoted to rice production in 2017 was 5,377.0 million hectares, which is an increase of 4.5% over 2016 figure. A national average yield of 2.4 ton per hectare was recorded for the crop in 2017.

Generally, the survey recorded percentage increase in most staple crops in 2017 compared to their production estimates in 2016. Thus, there was an increase of 4.4% for sorghum and average yield of 1.3 ton per hectare; 61% increase for Cowpea and average yield of 1 ton per hectare. Similarly, an increase yield of 11.4% and average of 0.9 ton per hectare was recorded for soybean. Cassava had a yield increase of 7.7% and national average yield of 7.3 tons per hectare.  5.0 % yield increase and an average yield of 1.6 ton per hectare were recorded for groundnut. Other crops production increases recoded during the period under review were cotton (2.3%), Cocoyam (16.8%), beniseed (6.5%), tomato (13.2%), onion (7.6%) and okra (6.9%), respectively. 

The increase in land area for crops production in 2017 could be attributed to the Federal Government initiative to boost agricultural production. However, the average yield per hectare for many crops is extremely low and thus, making farming unattractive to potential investors. The low yield could be linked to low level of farm mechanization in the country.   For instance, farmers have poor access to tractor, which is the foundation of farm mechanization in many countries.  Tractor population in the country is very low compared to many countries. Data on tractors from 26 states and FCT revealed a total number of 908 and 964 functional tractors owned by states governments in 2016 and 2017, respectively. This represents a 6.17% increase, although still far from reality on the field. Non-functional government-owned tractors in 2016 and 2017 were 539 and 524, a reduction of 2.78%. Among the states that provided data, Plateau State reported the highest number of government functional tractors of 279 by any state while Rivers and Akwa Ibom states reported 2 and 1 respectively. Generally, the number of non-functional tractors reduced in most states, except in a few instances such as Borno, which had 21.88% increase in the number of non functional tractors.   Farmers from 34 states reported their inability to access tractor services in 2017 due to high cost of tractor hiring services; while about 28 (75%) states could not access tractor services for their wet season agricultural production activities due to unavailability. Other reasons, which prevented farmers from accessing tractor services in 2017, are cost of acquiring tractor services and poor access roads for the tractors.

The 2017 APS identified general constraints/ challenges to agricultural production in the year. The challenges were classified under climate related, inputs, mechanization, agricultural broadcasts, and e-extension services. The survey revealed that all the ADPs complained of the high cost of airtime as a major constraint to airing their agricultural programmes through radio and television stations. Other constraints to agricultural broadcasts as captured in the survey are lack of equipment (89%), poor access by farmers (65%) and inappropriate broadcast times in (49%).

Information on increasing security challenges to agricultural production was also captured in the 2017 survey. 31 states reported frequent incidences of herdsmen/farmers conflict; 6 States (16%) reported activities related to insurgency and kidnapping while 5 and 4 states reported cattle rustling and communal clashes respectively. This situation has caused a lot of farming communities to abandon their homes, farmlands and other agricultural ventures out of for fear for their lives while potential investors were scared away. One consistent issue considered worrisome in the field was adulteration of inputs. The farmers are consistently exposed to poisonous and ineffective inputs at the expense of national food safety and security. Also, at various border towns in Ogun, Niger, Benue, Sokoto and Katsina states, the survey teams observed the thriving ‘business’ of smuggling cheap and ‘expired’ agricultural produce into Nigeria from neighbouring countries. These activities serve as disincentive to farmers, especially along the border towns.

In conclusion, the APS report revealed the national capacity on the agricultural production in the country. There is urgent need to improve this capacity to meet the national food demand and avoid food insecurity. States and Local governments must discharge their expected responsibilities in agricultural development of this nation.

Peeping at Research and Development Centre: NAERLS Presents 2017 Agricultural Performance in Nigeria

Peeping at Research and Development Centre: NAERLS Presents 2017 Agricultural Performance in Nigeria

As a tutor of Agricultural Engineering courses at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels, sometimes, I begin my lecture of my new set of students with a question on food security. “Which is worst form of insecurity to a humanity, military or food”? The class may be momentarily silent with each student excogitating what should be the right answer while gazing at me. Sensing the confusion, I reframe the question; what is the biggest threat to a person; a loaded gun pointed at someone or withdrawal of food to that person? Death is the limit and the maximum damage to any form of insecurity; be it military, food, social and others, if one is to make a choice of death, either by bullet/bomb or by starvation of food (food insecurity), what is the best choice for a person? Dying by bullet within few seconds or hunger that may last many weeks.  Many will choose bullet to avoid the unbearable pain cause by hunger with full consciousness. There are evidences showing that animals that starve to death experience a myriad of painful symptoms throughout each stage of their physical deterioration. Several video films showing animals dying out of hunger are pitiful, disgusting and not a pleasant show to watch.

How painful is death from starvation? After a few days without food, some chemicals called “ketones” build up in the blood. These chemicals cause a mild euphoria that serves as an anesthetic. The weakening brain also releases a surge of feel-good hormones called endorphins at first week of starvation without dehydration. Starvation wreaks havoc on the body immune system, mostly on account of an extreme deficiency of vitamins and minerals.  Some people will become weak and die of immune-related diseases during starvation. People can die of starvation in as short as a three-week span, or as long as 70 days. During the Irish Hunger Strikes of 1981, for example, ten men survived without food (drinking only water) for periods ranging from 46 to 73 days. Starvation is generally brought by food insecurity either due to natural calamity or man-made calamity. Food insecurity could be sudden or gradual depending on the factors responsible for its development. Whatever the case may be, a country must strive hard to avoid the development of food insecurity, which is the worst form of insecurity to the human race. This brings fore the question; how food secured is Nigeria? Nigeria as a nation is capable of producing food to feed half of African continent; yet, the country has not been producing enough to satisfactorily meet the needs of her citizenry. However, there haven’t been reported cases of people dying out of hunger in Nigeria but there are many families struggling to meet their daily dietary needs. The country must work hard to avoid worst situation. How can Nigeria achieve food security? A pre-requisite question, which can lead to satisfactory answer to how Nigeria can achieve food security, is “what is the agricultural performance of Nigeria? What are the performances of the different agricultural components; livestock, fisheries, crops and their value chains?”

The foregoing analysis and discussion bring the import of a research conducted by National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS) on the assessment of Agricultural activities during the 2017 rainy season in Nigeria. The research is tag “Agricultural Performance Survey (APS)”, which has been an annual event that showcases the crops production estimates, challenges to farm inputs, technologies adoption, and constraints to production, pests and diseases situation and market information. An insight to answers on the food security questions is readily available in the APS report. Although, NAERLS has been conducting APS in the last three decades but the 2017 was uniquely done. The survey was conducted with active involvement of key agencies in Agriculture and related sectors such as National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), National Productivity Centre (NPC), NARIs, NiMet and Famine Early Warning Service Network (FEWSNET), Nigeria. Furthermore, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) provided sound support to the researchers through the provision of 200 Android tablets, which facilitated electronic data capture during survey. No doubt, the involvement of the agencies raised the scope and quality of the 2017 exercise. A total of 21 agencies in addition to the states Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs) across the nation participated in the 2017 APS. The public presentation of the APS report was the epic of the momentous national assignment conducted by NAELS and partners. The presentation was done after the stakeholders’ validation workshop of the survey results. The Honorable Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heneiken Lakpobiri publicly presented the result/report of 2017 APS before the important stakeholders of Agricultural Development in Nigeria.

The groundbreaking ceremony of the APS public presentation was made on 27^th February 2018 at HQ NAF Officers’ Mess and Suites, Kado, Abuja. Fifteen States Commissioners of Agriculture or their representatives, Programme Managers of 23 States and FCT Agricultural Development Programmes witnessed the occasion. Similarly, the International Developmental Agencies such as GIZ, IFAD, FEWSNET, Alliance for Science, Ithaca, USA and relevant organizations graced the historic event. The Minister, Dr. Lakpobiri was visibly elated for being the first to make the public presentation of the APS for the use of general public and indeed humanity. He stated that the APS report could serve as knowledge-base for research and policy decisions in areas of crop pests, disease situation, market situation, commodity price levels, agro-meteorological conditions and agro-pastoral conditions across the country. The report is a useful document for the guidance of policy, research and developmental efforts of the communities across the nation. Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Prof. Ibrahim Garba served as the chairman of the occasion. NAERLS, the lead partner of the survey is one of the twelve research centres under the auspices of ABU Zaria. This made the occasion to be very special to Prof. Garba. He was thus; observably ecstatic as the survey achieves two major goals he craves for ABU and NAERLS. One of the three cardinal goals of a university is “community service” and the APS has perfectly achieved it. Additionally, the survey has achieved one of the six national mandates of NAERLS as contains in her Statue. In his opening remarks, Prof. Garba thanked the Minister for the Ministry’s continuous support to research Institutes under ABU to discharge their mandates in research and extension services. He assured the stakeholders of NAERLS readiness to continue providing information, skill, technologies and other extension services to farmers for the economic well being of citizens through agriculture. He called on the stakeholders to take maximum benefits provided by the 2017 APS, as a credible source of information for the development of agriculture, water resources and environmental control.

What are the contents of the APS report? How can these findings help Nigeria achieve food security? Before then, what is NAERLS?

Historically, NAERLS was initially named "Research Liaison Services". It grew out of the “Specialist Services” section of the then Northern Nigeria Ministry of Agriculture. With the transfer of Institute for Agricultural Research IAR in 1962 to Ahmadu Bello University, when the university was created it became imperative to establish an organ to provide a formal linkage between IAR and the then Ministry of Agriculture of Northern Nigeria to ensure that research results get to farmers in useful adoptable form. Thus, the Extension Research Liaison Section (ERLS) was created in 1963 within IAR. In 1975, the Ahmadu Bello University Council, in accordance with Statute 19, separated the ERLS from IAR and renamed it the Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (AERLS). Thus, AERLS became an autonomous Institute within the Agricultural Complex of the University under the aegis of the then Federal Ministry of Science and Technology (FMST), similar to the parent Institute, IAR. In 1987, some of the mandates of Research Institutes under the supervision of the then Federal Ministry of Science and Technology were reorganized to remove duplication and create synergy. In recognition of the then AERLS contribution to the successful extension support services in the Northern States of Nigeria, the Institute was given a national mandate, which metamorphosed it to National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS).

Presently, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) fund NAERLS, while Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, provides its staff. This makes NAERLS to be one among four research centres with two supervisory bodies; FMARD and university. Surprisingly and pleasantly, there is no conflict of interests and the two bodies are achieving their goals. While FMARD is achieving agricultural extension policy and direction through NAERLS, ABU uses both the human resources and infrastructure of NAERLS for teaching, learning and community services. These tasks are accomplished because of the mission and mandate of NAERLS from 1987 to date. (To be continued next week)      

Recognising the Second Generation Inventors IV

Recognizing the Second Generation Inventors IV

Recognition of inventors is an inexhaustible exercise to this Column because of the dynamic nature of technological innovations and inventions.  Readers may recall that my article of 5^th January 2018 with caption “Recognizing the Second Generation Inventors III” focused on the WhatsApp as one of the social media channels. This channel became so successful and attractive to the generality of people and truly made the world to be a global village. Thus, the efficacious outing of WhatsApp made it irresistible and attractive bride to Facebook who earlier denied the inventors gainful employment. In 2014, Facebook eventually purchased WhatsApp for a princely price of $12 billion in stock and $4 billion in cash. In addition, Facebook set aside another $3 billion in restricted stock units to be granted to WhatsApp’s founders and employees that will invest over the next four years. WhatsApp calls itself "a personal real-time messaging network allowing millions of people around the world to stay connected with their friends and family." During the $19 business transaction between Facebook and WhatsApp, It was apparent that WhatsApp was on a path to connect 1 billion people globally. The Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was quoted thus, "The services that reach that milestone (of connecting 1 billion people) are all incredibly valuable. I've known Jan for a long time and I'm excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected." The marriage of convenience between Facebook and WhatsApp took the global communication system to the zenith, can there be further improvement? Where are we heading? Time will tell.

Before we predict the future, let us continue to recognize similar spectacular inventions within the social media for efficient and effective communication. Google is one important social media tool that seems to have answers to all the questions pose by all internet users on all spheres of human endeavors at all times in all circumstances as long as there is internet service. Google is an electronic miracle with stunning amazement of the 21^st Century, which is handy to both students and teachers.   Google is a search engine, which handles more than 70 percent of all online requests and queries on all subjects from humanity to social and hard-core sciences. Google has transformed to a giant company whose stock consistently sells for $600 a share or higher on the Nasdaq exchange. One of the most astounding traits of Google is not the overwhelming success but how it was achieved within a “twinkle of an eye”. That was the timeline Google to triumph. Historically, IBM existed as back as 1911 while Microsoft and Apple started in the mid-1970s. Google started in 1993 as PhD research work of Larry Page, a 22 years old graduate of University of Michigan who worked with another student a 21-year-old Sergey Brin, at Stanford University. Therefore, Page and Brin are the two young men globally reputed to be the inventors of Google. How did it start?

Google is a search engine or portal and there have been around many search engines since the early days of the Internet. In fact, Google is a relative latecomer among in the class of search engines but grew to become the most reliable and premier destination for finding just about anything on the World Wide Web (WWW). What's a Search Engine? A search engine is a program that searches the Internet and finds web pages for the user based on the keywords typed in the computer or smart handsets connected with Internet. Search engine contains several parts, which include (but not limited to) spider software search fields, display format, a database and algorithms that rank results for relevancy.

Google is the most popular search engine and was code named after a “googol”, a word for a Mathematical number of 1 followed by 100 zeros (10¹⁰⁰) found in the book "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Edward Kasner and James Newman. To the site's founders, the name represents the immense amount of information that a search engine has to sift through to find an appropriate answer to any query. At the time of Google commencement, search engines were known to rank results based on how often a search term appeared on a web page. The Google search engine was unique with a technology called “PageRank”, which determined a website's relevance by taking into account the number of pages, along with the importance of the pages that linked back to the original site. Page and Brin continued to improve Google overtime. It was very much a shoestring project, operating out of their dorm rooms, the pair built a server network using cheap, used and borrowed personal computers. They even maxed their credit cards buying terabytes of disks at discount prices. After a relative success, they first tried to license their search engine technology but failed to find anyone that wanted their product at an early stage of development. Page and Brin then decided to keep Google in the meantime and seek more financing, improve the product and take it to the public themselves once they had a good product. The strategy worked out well and after more improvement, Google finally turned into a hot commodity. Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim said after a quick demo of Google, "Instead of us discussing all the details, why don't I just write you a check?" He did just that. The $100,000 check was made out to Google Inc., though Google, as a legal entity did not exist yet. It didn't take long, however, as Page and Brin incorporated within two weeks, cashed the check and raised $900,000 more for their initial round of funding.

In September of 1998, Google Inc. opened in Menlo Park, California, and Google.com, a beta search engine, was answering 10,000 search queries every day. On September 21, 1999, Google officially removed the beta (test status) from its title. As inventors of Google who transformed to Google Inc., Page and Brin owned about 14 percent of its shares and control 56 percent of the stockholder voting power through super-voting stock. On August 19, 2004, at Stock market, an initial public offering (IPO) took place, which brought Google Inc. to limelight.  The Company moved to its new headquarters to Mountain View, California, nicknamed the Googleplex. In August 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Google, Alphabet's leading subsidiary continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet interests. Upon completion of the restructure, Sundar Pichai was appointed as CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet.

According to the online source, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google, the Google Inc. grows rapidly from the time it was incorporated with a chain of products, acquisitions, and partnerships beyond Google's core search engine (Google Search). It offers services designed for work and productivity (Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides), email (Gmail/Inbox), scheduling and time management (Google Calendar), cloud storage (Google Drive), social networking (Google+), instant messaging and video chat (Google Allo/Duo/Hangouts), language translation (Google Translate), mapping and turn-by-turn navigation (Google Maps/Waze/Earth/Street View), video sharing (YouTube), note-taking (Google Keep), and photo organizing and editing (Google Photos). The company leads the development of the Android mobile operating system, the Google Chrome web browser, and Chrome Operation System, a lightweight operating system based on the Chrome browser. Google swung increasingly into hardware development from 2010 to 2015, it partnered with major electronics manufacturers in the production of its Nexus devices. In 2016, Google released multiple hardware products (including the Google Pixel smartphone, Home smart speaker, Wifi mesh wireless router, and Daydream View virtual reality headset). The new hardware chief, Rick Osterloh, stated: "a lot of the innovation that we want to do now ends up requiring controlling the end-to-end user experience". Google has also experimented with becoming an Internet carrier. In February 2010, it announced Google Fiber, a fiber-optic infrastructure that was installed in Kansas City; in April 2015, it launched Project Fi in the United States, combining Wi-Fi and cellular networks from different providers; and in 2016, it announced the Google Station initiative to make public Wi-Fi available around the world, with initial deployment in India.

The movement of Google is rapidly amazing with menacing aim at concurring the global communication industry. The Google clientele is increasingly swelling at exponential rate and enjoying effective services at relatively lower costs making the pockets of Google inventors to similarly swells without ceiling. What is the target of Google? (To be continued next week)

ABU Convocation Series: Technological Impacts and Opportunities IV

ABU Convocation Series: Technological Impacts and Opportunities IV

The contributions of the three prominent ABU Agricultural Research Institutes (IAR, NAPRI and NAERLS) to the university’s technological impacts on the agriculture were highlighted in the last two parts of this article. Recently (19 and 20/1/2018), the University played host to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh who toured the three Institutes on a 2-day working visit. The Minister was shown the achievements recorded by the three Institutes since their establishments. IAR showed a number of different seed varieties, which were released. They included 54 varieties of maize, 48 varieties of sorghum, 17 cowpea, 13 cotton and four sunflower varieties among others. NAPRI presented livestock production technologies while NAERLS reported significant achievement in advancing the frontiers agricultural extension services through use of ICT. The minister expressed satisfaction and saluted the courage and efforts of the Institutes toward making Nigeria proud in the area of agriculture. Earlier, the Minister launched the donation of 370 motorcycles to extension agents in the State’s Agricultural Development Programmes in all the 36 states of the federation and FCT. The donation by the Federal Government was aimed at re-engineering extension service delivery in the country.

So far, much has been said about ABU’s breakthroughs in Agriculture. Although, it is generally accepted among the academia in Africa and beyond that ABU is a pacesetter in the field of agricultural research and innovations, however, the university has also performed excellently in other areas. Engineering is one of such areas. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (ABU) had made a giant stride in the areas of automobile engineering by producing two Marathon cars namely ‘Abufeng’ and ‘Abucar II’. The block bursting ‘Abucar II’ participated in the Road Show, organized by the Shell Petroleum Development Company, Nigeria in Lagos in March 2015 and came out top by passing all the technical tests. The tests included safety, ergonomics, energy efficient, body and interior design as well as overall weight. The special innovations in ‘Abucar II’ range from a Rear-View Camera System, a Soft-Touch gear selection system and a Rain Sensitive Wiper System. Over a relatively short time, the university was able to improve the design of Abucar II and thus, produced Zazzau III, an energy efficient car. Zazzau III participated in the Shell African Eco-Marathon Championship in South Africa in 2016. The competition was hosted by School of Electrical Engineering, University of Johannesburg and took place at the Zwartkops Raceway with twelve participating teams. ABU Team won the Team Award for perseverance and a 3^rd place award for efficiency of engine design. Another ABU’s achievement in engineering is the development of ABU Research Mini-Refinery. This project was initiated by the Department of Chemical Engineering in 2001/2002 Academic Season but couldn’t continue due to paucity of funds. In 2011, Prof. Mohammed Dabo dusted the proposal, reviewed and forwarded it to the University Management for funding. Through a combination of TETFund grant and the university’s support over a period of five years the Mini - Refinery project became a reality. Today, the refinery has a capacity of refining one barrel per day with good refining qualities of the Petroleum products comparable with conventional refineries worldwide. Still in the field of engineering, a 15KW Solar Upgrades System was developed. The project was commissioned in February, 2015. This is a power system that is completely driven by solar panels and independent of the national grid. It powers all lecture theatres, classroom, libraries, and offices. The idea for the project came from ABU graduate and staff, Dr. Tajudeen Humble Sikiru, who took his PhD from Tswane University Centre for Renewable Energy and Power system, South Africa. The project provides manpower training for undergraduate and postgraduate students. A local capacity was built in, especially the postgraduate researchers who participated in the project. The students and staff of the Faculty of Engineering of the University did all the installations. So, those who did not have first-hand experience on solar energy got the opportunity to participate and acquire such knowledge and experience.

Still in engineering, ABU recorded yet another success story; the development of Zeolite Catalyst from Kankara Kaolin. Zeolite, a technical name of a solid mineral coined by Swedish geologist Axel Cronstedt (1722-1765).  Zeolites are solids, three – dimensional crystal structure made up of molecules of aluminum, oxygen, silicon and sodium with water molecules trapped between them. Zeolites are useful in pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries. They are used in catalytic crackers to break large hydrocarbon molecules into gasoline, diesel, kerosene, waxes and all kinds of other petroleum products. The many pores in a Zeolite structure are like tiny test tubes where atoms and molecules become trapped and chemical reactions readily take place. Like all catalysts, Zeolites are reusable over and over again. In Nigeria, the Zeolite catalysts are commonly used in the petroleum refining and petrochemical industry for a variety of applications, ranging from catalytic cracking of heavy fuels to isomerization and aromatization of petrochemical feedstock. Zeolite Y was first synthesized in the sixties and introduced to the fluid catalytic cracking of heavy fuels in the seventies. At that time, the zeolite Y was produced by partial de-alumination of kaolin. Currently, higher quality zeolite Y is produced either by incorporation method from high purity chemicals or by the patented Engelhard method from kaolin and high purity chemicals.

The Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) Professorial Chair in Chemical Engineering at Ahmadu Belo University, Zaria Prof. Abdulkarim S. Ahmed was able to develop new process routes through which high quality zeolites (zeolite Y and ZSM-5) were produced.  His work was a result of many years of quality research work with his team of researchers. The work involves the production of zeolite Y and ZSM-5 from kaolin massively available in Kankara town of Katsina State, Nigeria. The ZSM-5 prepared also had shorter crystallization time of 4 days when compared to 7 days for conventional methods. This is certainly an outstanding performance. The zeolites were blended and compounded into catalysts and tested both within and outside the country. The characterization and performance tests carried out revealed that a blend of the two catalysts prepared locally outperformed the commercial catalyst presently used at Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company.

Pilot plant units have been designed and fabricated to produce the catalysts. The units were commissioned on 26^th August, 2015. Development studies were continued at the plant to improve the qualities of the products to those achieved at the bench scale. Already, Nigerian Patent Office, a body responsible for granting patents had granted a patent to the university for this giant feat. This development has many positive implications for Nigeria in general and for Kankara town, Katsina State and the environs in particular, in terms of employment generation, revenue generation and conservation of foreign exchange earnings. The drive to increase the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) along the development and application of our natural mineral resources has over the years led to the intensification of national research efforts with the aim of adding value to the country’s vast mineral deposits. One of such minerals that has received attention is kaolin with an estimated over 3 billion metric tons deposits according to the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) and the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development (2003). In addition to zeolite catalyst production, kaolin has other applications in alum, alumina and ceramic production and as filler in paper and plastics, and as adsorbents for heavy metals, to mention a few

Kankara kaolin has been reported to be one of the best China clays in the country. It is presently mined on a small scale by local miners for sale to non-manufacturing users. A pharmaceutical grade kaolin beneficiation plant established in the town is yet to take off. This research work on kaolin is a golden opportunity for the Federal and Katsina state governments to support the exploitation and utilization of kaolin and other natural resources for economic diversification in the state.

In conclusion, ABU has demonstrated its capabilities in research and innovations with unquantifiable technological impacts to the Nigerian society and beyond. Yet, the university has not reached its zenith, more need to be done by the university and the society at large. The university must exploit the opportunities provided by the vast and highly influential members of its Alumni. A deliberate and concerted campaign “Time for Payback” has to be mounted to sensitize all those who passed through this citadel of learning. Every alumnus should provide his/her widow’s mite on continuous basis to raise ABU to a greater height. States and Federal governments have to increase support to convert the research results and innovations achieved by ABU and other research centres for commercialization. The time is now, tomorrow may be late, the world is already a global village and someone, somewhere can take advantage at the expense of Nigerian society.