By Chijioke Ogbodo with additional reports by Tunji Ewalefu and Zakari Abdulahi
Nigeria is the giant of Africa and a respected country in the comity of nations due to her contributions as a nation and those of her citizens. The nation of Nigeria is blessed with abundant resources both human and natural. Her nationals are making meaningful contributions across the globe.
One of such Nigerians who has been consistent in his contributions to the growth of his chosen field of engineering globally, and Nigeria in particular is an Umuode-born Professor Bart. O. Nnaji. Umuode is a small town in Enugu State, Nigeria.
Nnaji is the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Geometric Power Limited (GPL), a pioneer indigenous power company which in partnership with Renatech in 2001, financed, developed and built an emergency power plant in Abuja which supplied reliable electricity to the defunct Nigerian Electric Power Authority. Geometric Power Limited is almost done with the building of an Integrated Power Project (Aba IPP) in Aba, Abia State, Nigeria. In recognition of the fact that Nigeria would not be able to afford sovereign guarantee for all of its power needs, Geometric Power developed a model of customised embedded generation that would not require sovereign guarantee. The company has built over 105 km of 33KV Over-Head Lines within the Aba metropolis with steel tubular poles (one of a kind in Nigeria) used to build the 33KV line infrastructure. In addition, they have built over 40km 11KV lines in Aba, completed five new sub-stations consisting of the Power Plant’s 3x60MVA sub-station and four brand new 2x15MVA sub-stations at various parts of Aba town. They have refurbished the only three existing dilapidated substations that belonged to Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) with three brand new control buildings with outdoor substation gantries within the existing PHCN substations. To ensure availability of gas supply, the company built a 27km gas pipeline from Imo River to the power plant. The Aba IPP is virtually complete, all the substations are energised and gas is available for the project. GPL has invested well over $500m or over N100bn in the entire project. This project when completed would guarantee reliable electricity to the industrial and commercial clusters of Aba and its environ and ensure a round-the-clock productive time for manufacturers, meaning job creation and economic boost to Abia State and Nigeria in general.
Professor Nnaji is the immediate past Honourable Minister of Power, appointed by President Goodluck Jonathan as a result of his immense contributions to moving the electric power sector forward. Here, it may be necessary to take a peep into how he emerged as the power minister. In March 2010, he was appointed into the Presidential Advisory Council and subsequently, he was made Special Adviser to the President on Power, and served as the Executive Chairman, Presidential Task Force on Power (PTFP). The Presidential Task Force on Power was charged with driving the power sector reform in Nigeria.
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As a result of the intractable challenges in the Power sector, and tackling this head-on, he conceived and developed the much acclaimed power blue print known as the “Roadmap for Power Reform in Nigeria.” The power roadmap is a pathway designed to revolutionise and fast-track the pace of power development in Nigeria after decades of policy confusion and stagnation. Due to appreciable successes recorded in the power sector owing to his efforts as presidential adviser and chairman of PTFP, in 2011, he was appointed the Minister of Power. As a ministet, his efforts to improve power supply in Nigeria soon began to yield appreciable dividends. His implementation of the Power Roadmap led to a near perfect privatisation of the state-owned power monopoly, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, to the acclaim of the power industry, the business community, foreign investors and to the relief of ordinary Nigerians who had lost all hopes in redeeming the sector. Improvement in the sector was steadily progressing particularly in power generation and distribution until when he resigned his appointment in 2013.
Nnaji’s first ministerial appointment was in 1993 when he served as the Minister of Science and Technology where he had to re-establish the ministry which was scrapped by previous military administration. He practically put together what is today known as Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.
Nnaji has received numerous honours and awards due to his professional, academic and human capital development endeavours. These have come from within and outside Nigeria. He is Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON), a national honour conferred on him by the Nigerian President in 2010. In 2001 he received the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), Nigeria’s highest intellectual merit award.
He holds the Honorary Doctor of Science and Technology from five different Nigerian universities. He is a fellow of many academies including the Nigerian Academy of Science and the Nigerian Academy of Engineering.
He serves on various governing boards in Nigeria. As a scholar he served as Distinguished Professor of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and as Alcoa Foundation Professor in the University of Pittsburgh, as William Kepler Whiteford Professor also at the University of Pittsburgh.
He spearheaded the creation of the US National Science Foundation Center for e-Design as a multi-campus Center of Excellence in the United States and served as its first Director. He was a Principal or Co-principal Investigator in various research projects worth more than $50 million sponsored by the US National Science Foundation, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, US Department of Defence, GE, IBM, Ford Motors and other major companies.
He has published five books and more than 100 technical articles. His book Computer Integrated Manufacturing and Engineering won the 1994 world best textbook prize for Manufacturing Engineering.
Nnaji completed his primary and secondary education in Enugu State, Nigeria, before he won a scholarship to study at St. John’s University where he earned his B.Sc. He proceeded to earn his M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the State University of Virginia. He obtained the certificate of Post-Doctoral Studies in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Massachusetts. He has trained hundreds of engineers and supervised scores of PhD students from all over the world.
In November 1993 the whole Nkanu land of Enugu Statehonored him when more than 60 Nkanu traditional rulers assembled in Okpara Square, Enugu, to confer on him the title of Onwa Nkanu. Seven years later His Royal Majesty Engr. Onyesoh, Eze Nri, representing the most ancient of Igbo potentates, conferred on him a distinguished traditional chieftaincy title of ‘Aka ji Oku’ of Igbo land, for his achievements in the power sector.
He is one Nigerian rare gem that all of us should be proud of.
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