NATION BUILDING THROUGH QUALITY EDUCATION

Book Review:

NATION BUILDING THROUGH QUALITY EDUCATION

Reflections on the Leadership Role of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

Once more, I am craving the indulgence of my esteemed readers to permit me present an issue so important to me, to our educational sector and the nation. The issue is the vital information contained in a review of my Book. I wrote the book on the critical roles played and still playing by my Alma Mater, employer and source of livelihood, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria. I alongside over a million Alumni across the globe of this Citadel of learning, the most cosmopolitan, diverse and biggest university in Africa owe successes in our various endeavors to ABU Zaria. We can hardly pay back what the university did to us. You can’t pass through ABU without being proud that you did. In approximately last four years when I started this Column, I wrote so much on ABU Zaria, tried to bring out the huge investment potentials and solutions to our multiple challenges against the nation building. Some of these issues are catalogued into a book with above title. Two erudite professors of Art, A. K. Babajo, professor of Linguistic and M. K. Aliyu mni, professor of Archeology reviewed the book and I wish to share the contents of their review with my readers. Happy reading

NATION BUILDING THROUGH QUALITY EDUCATION

Reflections on the Leadership Role of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

By Mohammed Khalid Othman (PhD)

Reviewed by Professor Muhammad Kabir Aliyu, mni

Department of Archaeology

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

INTROCUTION:

Universities all over the world and throughout all times and by their callings are meant to intervene to solve society’s unending challenges in all spheres of life. To that end Universities in Nigeria are not left behind in anyway despite their own challenges in meeting their needs that may allow them to fully fulfil that mandate to the Nigerian society and the world. Despite the acute challenges of funding and adequate facilities, Ahmadu Bello University, as one of the first generation Universities in Nigeria, has performed quite excellently in several areas and has produced manpower for the country and the world. The University has also made breakthroughs in several areas through researches and inventions both by staff and students. It is some of these breakthroughs that is presented in this book put together by one of its great alumnus, Muhammad Khalid Othman.

Muhammad Khalid Othman is a Professor of Agricultural Engineering and currently the Executive Director of the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Service (NAERLS), an agricultural extension service center of the University. Most of the collections of the research outputs in this book have appeared in the LEADERSHIP Newspapers and the NEPTUNE Prime (online) Newspaper. They are now put together in a book form for posterity and accessibility by the academic community and the general public.

THE REVIEW:

The book has been arranged in sic parts. Part one deals with general introduction under the title “Giant Strides in Research and Development”. There is the general description of the Ahmadu Bello University as one of the First Generation Universities and all the qualities of its staff and students led by strong administration faced by challenges of having to deal with critics and controversial elements within. But by and large and at the end the University remained great as the most cosmopolitan in Nigeria. The section also presented some giant strides made by the University.

The first is the Mini Refinery that was constructed and funded by the University. This was initiated as an M.Sc work in the Department of Chemical Engineering. The refinery was designed to refine a barrel per day. It is now ready as a model for the training of both undergraduate and post graduate students. This technology was only developed by Ahmadu Bello University and the first of its kind. The second achievement by the University presented in this part is the development of a 15KW Solar Upgrade System by a staff of the University. It powers all lecture theatres, classrooms, libraries, heads of department offices and examination offices of Electrical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering Departments. The innovation has the potential of saving the University N30 million annually when operated to full capacity.

The third breakthrough by the University in this section is the development of Layers and Meat-type Shika Brown Chicken. This is the result of over fifteen years of active breeding and selection work by the researchers at the National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI), which is one of the research centres of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Shika Brown is well adapted to tropical climates and gives very high economic returns. The chicken is hardy and resistant to many diseases; hence, there is less investment in drugs. It was tested to give a very good performance in all the ecological zones of the country. The fourth innovation presented in this section is the development of Varieties of Groundnuts and Maize by the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR) of the University. The varieties grow very well in the Sahel and Savannah zones of West Africa.

The fifth innovation in this section is technological breakthrough too. The Department of Mechanical Engineering innovated and fabricated through automobile engineering two marathon cars, namely ‘Abufeng’ and ‘Abucar II’. The block-bursting Abucar II passed all the technical tests, which included safety, ergonomics, energy efficiency and body and interior design tests as well as overall weight. Another scientific breakthrough by the University as number six presented in this part is the Development of Zeolite Catalyst from Kaolin. This was done from the abundant deposit of Kaolin from Kankara in Katsina State. Zeolites are useful in pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries and are used in catalytic crackers to break large hydrocarbon molecules into gasoline, diesel, kerosene, waxes and all kinds of other petroleum products. Finally in this section and number seven is the design and development of drone by some final year students of the Department of Physics. The drone was tested to delight of the University community. The drone can compete with any of its kind around the world.

The section closed with the convocation lecture delivered by Alhaji Aliko Dangote for 39th Convocation of the Ahmadu Bello University in which looked at “The Role of Entrepreneurship in National Development: The Story of Dangote Group’. The lecture centred on entrepreneurship and the power of innovation, leadership and focus. It is simply the success story of the Dangote group and the richest man in Africa.

Part two of the book titled “Contribution to Bioenergy Revolution in Nigeria”, presented a picture of how Ahmadu Bello University is making its contribution in the area of alternative energy solution. The University is intervening in three ways. The first one is the Nigeria-German Energy Partnership for the construction of 10 megawatts from solar energy source. This is being implemented with a financial assistance from Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund). The second one is through a collaborative project with a Hungarian firm, Agrar-Biothanol Company, to generate power from farm produce and human wastes (faeces). The ABU - Agrar-Biothanol Company project targets to produce 2.66 million litres of ethanol per annum; 1,333 tons of liquid organic fertilizer per annum, and 1.2 megawatts of electricity. The third effort is ABU-BIONAS project; the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the University and BIONAS, a Malaysian Firm, was signed. The company will work with the University intelligentsia to produce and train students and entrepreneurs on renewable energy technology transfer to industries.

In concluding this section, the author presented Ahmadu Bello University’s scientific contribution towards revamping sugar cane production and sugar making in Nigeria. The University did that through the application of plant tissue culture to decuple national sugarcane production within a few years. In this regard, a sugarcane bio-factory was established by the Institute for Agriculture (IAR), a research centre of the University in collaboration with the National Sugar Development Council, Abuja.

Part three of the book titled “Contribution to Technological Innovations and Manpower Development”, discusses some areas the University has contributed in the area of Man power development and Technological innovations. This falls within the core-mandate of the University. On manpower contribution to the nation and the world, Ahmadu Bello University, being the largest University in Nigeria, has a cosmopolitan alumni strength of over 800,000. This figure may be a conservative estimate, when considering about 130 Colleges of Education and polytechnics affiliated to the University and issuing ABU certificates. In the area of research and development, the author opined that, in ABU, Nigeria has a window of opportunity to advance its development effort. This could be done through aggressive support to ABU’s breakthroughs in agriculture, pharmaceutical science, and engineering and computer science. The author presented in this section a detailed technological and scientific achievements of the 3 most successful Agric-based centres of the University. Namely, Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR), National Animal Production and Research Institute (NAPRI) and the National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Service (NAERLS). (To be continued next week)

Craving Alternative Energy: ABU Zaria and UN Nsukka In-depth Progress II

Craving Alternative Energy: ABU Zaria and UN Nsukka In-depth Progress II

As stated in the first part of this article, the fourth effort ABU Zaria is making to source for alternative energy is the conversion of typha grass into biogas, animal feeds and organic fertilizer. This effort is through one of the university’s research centers: National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison services (NAERLS).

Typha grass is one of the resource materials with higher potentials for biogas generation. The plant is aquatic in nature and highly prolific with occupation and blockage capability of the inland waterways and irrigation channels. It can store a large amount of energy by growing fast and producing large biomass, and this, in turn, pollutes the environment. This has been a major problem in the Hadejia Valley irrigation project in northern Nigeria. At this irrigation scheme, the plant threatens economic activities, health and livelihood of the surrounding communities. Typha growth negatively affects the productivity of rice fields, blocks water channels, impedes the flow of rivers, hinders navigation and fishing, and increases flooding risks. The grass covers significant percentage of the irrigation canals and drainage networks crisscrossing the entire 22,000 hectares of the irrigation land in Hadejia Valley Irrigation project. It tails the Hadejia River down to the Nguru wetlands. Typha grass is pervasively an ecological problem with serious threat to surrounding environment.

However, typha grass has astronomical potential to be used as a renewable energy source for generation of methane as well as conversion into animal feed. Methane is an odorless and highly flammable gas, which is a product of biological decomposition of organic matter. Despite this potential as an energy source, no effort was made to convert the grass environmental menace to economic opportunity. This could be attributed to the low rate of cellulosic digestion, as well as ability to slow specific growth rates of microorganisms involved in anaerobic conversion in conventional bioreactors. The typha grass project team innovated means of enriching microorganism with high cellulose degrading abilities through the use of rumen fluid that enhances Typha biomass degradation for biogas generation.

The Typha project team recorded excellent results at the laboratory experimentation; the microorganisms were able to degrade the grass   and provided a source of clean energy for lighting, heating, and cooking. Thus, the team was able to conceive innovative sustainable solutions to typha menace with high potentials of providing affordable power for Nigerians in rural areas and also improving the health and livelihood of families. This novel and unique technology for the economic conversion of typha biomass into biogas and animal feed with high efficiency provides a totally new approach to addressing environmental menace. It is indeed a great relief to the Nigerian people the opportunity of transforming the invasive typha weed into biogas to use locally in their communities and at the same time use of it directly as a raw material for animal feed, when harvested in early stages of plant growth or ensiling to use during the dry season.

The typha grass project is beyond addressing the environmental dilapidation of the irrigation project area, it has high level of diplomatic and academic niceties. Four universities in three different countries located in three different continents constituted the project team of researchers. The universities are ABU Zaria (NAERLS) and Federal University Gashua, Nigeria; University Polytechnic of Madrid, Spain, and University of Maryland, USA. Prof Eva Iglesias Martínez of Centre for the Management of Agricultural and Environmental Risks (CEIGRAM) UPM, Spain heads the multi-disciplinary team of typha Project researchers from these universities.

The project is one the World Bank funded activities in Nigeria under the Project- Transforming Irrigation Management in Nigeria (TRIMING) of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources. The research commenced in 2017 and has a 3 – year duration for completion. The broad objective is to develop alternative management and economic uses of typha biomass. This is done by converting the typha into an opportunity to improve livelihood of Nigerian people with emphasis on women as household managers using typha for biogas production and animal nutrition. Over the years, typha has become uncontrolled and invasive in the irrigation channels, rivers and agricultural land of the Hadejia Valley Irrigation Project (HVIP). The project is all encompassing with ten specific objectives including assessment of the long-term sustainability as well as evaluation of the social, environmental and economic impacts of the project on the people and environment in the study area. The project is aimed at transforming the ecological devastation of irrigation schemes caused by typha grass to economic opportunities and improvement of living standard.

In the last two years when the project started, a lot of water has passed under the bridge: one Nigerian PhD student, a personnel of ABU Zaria has completed his experimentation and field work in University of Maryland and ABU Zaria. Two other students, one from Federal University Gasua and the other from ABU Zaria are pursuing MSc programs under the project. The PhD student used factorial experimental design to investigate the viability of biogas production from factorial combinations of typha growth stages, mixing with rumen fluid as inoculant source. It was quite an intensive work that brought out excellent methodology on how to convert the grass to biogas and organic fertilizer. The best combination was that of dried 50 grams pre-bloom typha, grinded into 1-mm particle size and mixed with rumen media. This combination produced 10,142 ml volume of gas and generated 234 ml/g of volatile solid (VS). In days to come, the project will make biogas digesters available for the benefit of the communities.

In addition to benefiting the young Nigerian scientists in their PhD and MSc programs, there have been series of exchange visits before and during the project implementation. The researchers exchanged visits within and in-between Nigeria, Spain and USA with bounties of academic opportunities, knowledge and experience sharing as well as capacity building among the researchers and other stakeholders. These are efforts of ABU Zaria in anxious search of alternative energy to meet her daily needs. Now what are the efforts of UN Nsukka?

In Nigeria, the week of 18^th March 2019 was awash with media blitz of UN Nsukka innovation in generating electricity using organic waste. Daily Post (online Newspaper) of 21^st March and News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) of 19^th March 2019 were among the media that reported Prof Benjamin Ozumba, the Vice-Chancellor expressing his happiness over the inauguration of the locally generated electricity. He was quoted saying, “University of Nigeria Nsukka would no longer be a customer to Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC)”. “I am happy that the university under my watch has witnessed innovations and transformation, as today another feather has been added to the cap of my administration”. He further said “This is the first of its kind in the country, using of waste to generate electricity. By the time more of the plants are produced that will cover every part of the university, millions of naira will be saved every month, as UNN will longer pay monthly electricity bill to EEDC, ” The Vice Chancellor commended research team led by Prof Emenike that produced the Refuse Driven Fuel (RDF) gas plant. Prof Ejiogu, from the Department of Electrical Engineering of the university similarly praised Ozumba on his belief of making record-breaking innovations to transform UN Nsukka. Ejiogu was quoted saying, “The 100 KVA RDF project is designed and fabricated by laboratory of industrial power devices and energy system under special grant by Ozumba. The aim is to enable UNN to generate its own electricity with organic waste that will serve as fuel”. He further said “UNN power demand now is 3megawatts, so with twelve 250KVA of RDF plants, the electricity supply need of the university will be met. It is cheaper and can carry more load than solar energy installation. With RDF plant in your house or office, it will carry your air-conditioner, deep freezers, pressing iron and other things in your house…” This is another giant effort from Ivory Towers in search of alternative energy. ABU Zaria and UN Nsukka were both pushed to the wall to think out of the box for a sustainable solution to perennial and unending energy crisis: short supply, high cost and unreliable. There are may be several other pockets of effort in similar way to find lasting solution to national energy crisis/embarrassment. Can there be synergy? Perhaps, National University Commission or the Energy Commission of Nigeria can champion this course.

 

Craving for Alternative Energy: ABU Zaria and UN Nsukka In-depth Progress

Craving for Alternative Energy: ABU Zaria and UN Nsukka In-depth Progress

Globally, there are three fundamental functions of a university system in a nation building. The functions are teaching, research and community service. These functions require enormous and consistent use of human and materials sources, conducive-atmosphere and continuous supply of energy to operate the system. The quantum of these requirements is proportional to the size of the university. Relatively, large universities need large financial resources to meet these requirements and play their expected roles. In Nigeria, with free-tuition fee for undergraduate students in public universities, low-income generation, relatively small available grants and poor funding; managing university to meet these requirements becomes herculean. The consequences are perennial and unending university’s unions’ industrial actions as well as difficulty in maintaining educational standard. Among these requirements, energy is the life-wire of the university system but it is highly unreliable in Nigerian situation. It is also the most fund guzzling of the university’s lean purse on monthly basis. This has made management of public university very challenging.

The case of monthly payment of electricity bill by Ahmadu Bello University Zaria can clearly show the enormity of fund use to settle the bill of electricity. The current Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof Ibrahim Garba at the resumption of office in 2015 was welcomed by the mounting challenge of paying sky-rocketed electricity bill of over 80 million Naira monthly. He was quoted lamenting on the university’s difficulty to pay the bill “that independent power generation became imperative and necessary to the university because ABU could not sustain the N86 million monthly electricity bills. ABU seeks to address these issues by building a bio-ethanol and biogas plant for the benefits of the university and the surrounding communities”    

The high cost of energy to operate large university and continuous increase in prices of petroleum products, especially kerosene, the socio-economic implications and their impact on the environment make it imperative for the managers of Nigerian universities to search for efficient alternatives. This is why at least two universities are making fruitful progress in finding quantifiable biogas as alternative to public electricity supply. These universities are Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria and University of Nigeria (UN) Nsukka. How far have they gone? What are their challenges and opportunities to potential investors?

Before then, it is important to adequately introduce these two first generation universities, ABU Zaria, located in capital of Zazzau emirate, Kaduna State and UN Nsukka, located in northern fringe of Igbo Land, Enugu State. They were both conceived and nurtured by pre-independence nationalists; Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Owelle of Onitsha. Bello was the first and the last premier of the northern region while Azikiwe was Governor General of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963 and the first President of Nigeria from 1963 to 1966.

Ahmadu Bello University Zaria is one of the first generation universities in Nigeria. It was established in 1962 by the Government of the then Northern Region of Nigeria to impart knowledge and learning to men and women of all races without distinction on the grounds of race, religious or political beliefs. The founding fathers expected the University to aspire to the highest international ideals of scholarship and to provide learning of a standard required and expected of a university of the highest standing while reflecting the needs, the traditions, and the social and intellectual heritage of the society in which it is located. The University was taken over by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 1975 and has since then assumed a national mandate although its ties with the 19 states created out of the former Northern Region remain very strong and ever glued

In the over fifty years of its existence, ABU has grown to become the largest, and the most influential and diverse university in Nigeria. It consists of over 100 Academic Departments, thirteen Faculties, and fourteen Research Institutes and Specialized Centres. The University offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses in diverse fields of Agriculture, Public and Business Administration, Engineering, Environmental Design, Education, Biological and Physical Sciences, Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, the Humanities, Law and Social Sciences. The university has two campuses; Samaru and Kongo covering an estimated area of 7,000 hectares of land. Another unique feature of the University, as opposed to other Institutions of its type in Nigeria, is that it has both staff and students from all nooks and cranny of Nigeria, neighboring countries and few other countries across the continents. The university alumni cut across the social classes from former Nigerian President, Vice President, serving and former governors/Deputy governors of virtually all the 36 governors plus Federal Capital Territory, Abuja down to thousands of local government councilors and millions of ordinary graduates of different specializations nationwide and across the globe. Today, ABU Zaria houses over hundred thousand people comprising, undergraduates, postgraduates, staff and their families living within and outside Zaria. In spite of her relatively large size, ABU Zaria is amazingly expanding in academic programs, students and staff population as well as in academic excellence.

The motivation for ABU Zaria to source for alternative energy came from the university’s desire to drastically reduce the monthly electricity bill being paid to PHCN. In addition, alternative energy will reduce dependence on the fossil fuel as energy source.

In the last four years or so, ABU Zaria has vigorously craved for alternative energy. The university has recorded four different efforts with high potential to revolutionize energy production to meet her needs and the needs of her surrounding communities.

The first project was the Nigeria-German Energy Partnership for the construction of 10 Mega watts from solar energy source. The project implementation commenced with a financial support of Tertiary Education Trust Fund. The second one was through a collaborative project with a Hungarian firm; Agrar-Biothanol Company to generate power from farm produce and human waste (faeces). The ABU- Agrar-Biothanol Company project targeted to produce 2.66 million litres of ethanol per annum, 1,333 tons of liquid organic fertilizer per annum and 1.2 Mega watts of electricity. The third equally important effort was ABU-BIONAS project whose Memorandum of Understanding  (MOU) between the university and BIONAS, a Malaysian Firm, were signed a year ago.

The fourth effort was the conversion of typha grass into biogas, animal feeds and organic fertilizer. This effort is through one of the university research center: National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison services (NAERLS). The typha grass conversion project is a 3 – year World Bank funded project under Transformation of Irrigation in Nigeria (TRIMING). The typha project is aimed at transforming the ecological devastation of irrigation schemes caused by typha grass to economic opportunities.

Typha grass is one of the resource materials with higher potentials for biogas generation. The plant is aquatic in nature and highly prolific with occupation and blockage capability of the inland waterways and irrigation channels. It can store a large amount of energy by growing fast and producing large biomass, and this, in turn, polluted the environment. This was a major problem in the Hadejia Valley irrigation project in northern Nigeria. At this irrigation scheme, the plant threatens economic activities, health and livelihood of the surrounding communities. Typha growth negatively affects the productivity of rice fields, blocks water channels impedes the flow of rivers, hinders navigations and fishing, and increases flooding risks. Despite its potential to be used as a renewable energy source for biogas generation, limited effort has been made to do that. This could be attributed to the low rate of cellulosic digestion, as well as ability to slow specific growth rates of anaerobic microorganisms involved in anaerobic conversion in conventional bioreactors.

The typha grass project innovated means of enriching microorganism with high cellulose activities through the use of rumen fluid that enhances Typha biomass degradation for biogas generation. At the laboratory experimentation, the microorganisms were able to degrade the grass   and provided a source of clean energy for lighting, heating, and cooking. The technology could serve as an innovative solution with high potentials to not only provide affordable power for Nigerians in rural areas but also to greatly improve the health and livelihood of families (To be Continued next week)