Engineering Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow

[Defender]

I must thank most sincerely the Nigerian Institution of Mechanical Engineers (NIMechE) for the privilege to be the Keynote Speaker at the institution's 24th International Conference/AGM with the theme: 'Mechanical Engineering Education, Training, Practice and Entrepreneurship: For Rapid Industrial Transformation of Nigeria'

As an engineer and fellow of the institution, I am most pleased to be here in your midst. As they say, once an engineer, always an engineer.

Even as a politician, I have not ceased to be an engineer.

For eight good years, I was the Commissioner for Works in Lagos State and I was practically on the roads.

Without sounding immodest, I left a worthy legacy which has endured till today.

It might interest you to know that even as governor, I am still on the works beat, working in the hope that I will surpass my Lagos record in Osun.

Mechanical Engineering education in Nigeria began at what is now Yaba College of Technology circa 1948.

It was Yaba Technical Institute then. The school had taken over the premises vacated by Yaba Higher College after it went to Ibadan to form the University College, Ibadan.

The institute then took on a national assignment of training engineering assistants for various government departments in Nigeria.  Mechanical engineering was one of the technical courses the institute ran. However, by 1955, former Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, Zaria, under University College, Ibadan, which was affiliated to the University of London, began running a degree course in Mechanical Engineering. A notable graduate of this school was the illustrious Prof Ayodele Awojobi of the University of Lagos. This school metamorphosed into Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Other universities and polytechnics later emerged in the country with virtually all of them running degree courses in mechanical engineering.

However, before this time, Nigerians have been travelling abroad to study mechanical engineering, with most of them returning home to resume work at the works department of their regional governments.

However, with the rate at which mechanical engineers are churned out by the schools at home in addition to those who got their education abroad, it will be hard to argue that there is shortage of mechanical engineers in the country.

What is in contention now is not the quantity but the quality and this has serious implication on development in the country.

I will get to this later.

Mechanical engineering is critical to development in all aspects. It has been around almost since the known beginning of man.

The transition from the primitive era to the slave owning era through the feudal era to the period of Industrial Revolution has always been heralded by technology, especially mechanical engineering.

The most notable primeval mechanical engineer however was Achimedes, a polymath, who lived circa 287-212 BC and who invented the screw pump among others.

One of the earliest inventions of man, the timepiece, came from mechanical engineering.

From sundial, hourglass and water-clocks and now to digital, this fact might be lost on many, but the best time pieces are still the mechanical watches, probably made in Switzerland and encased in gold.

The transition to the slave owning era was particularly remarkable.

It was those who could process steel and fashion it into weapons of war that were able to conquer and dominate others.

They were also the ones who could fashion farm implements and create wealth on a scale never before possible.

The history of wars, conquest and dynasties largely was a history of advances in mechanical engineering.

Oduduwa's dynasty for instance was established because he had mastered iron and was able to fashion it into weapons with which he subdued all the people on his path.

This same pattern was also noticeable in his offspring by the time they started spreading eastward, westward and northward to establish their dynasties.

However, the most spectacular effect of mechanical engineering was during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century when manufacturing machines and engines were introduced to displace mass human labour in factories and farms.

The concept of the engine and what it can be adapted into changed our world – the way we conduct business, leisure and warfare.

Automobiles soon displaced the horse drawn carriage while military tanks sent war chariots to the museums.

The tractor on the farm combined with other implements like disc harrow, combine harvester, etc. transformed agriculture and did away with mass human and animal labour.

The engine today drives everything around us and human life is woven intricately around mechanical engineering.

The moral from this long history is that mechanical engineering is central to development and its development in any nation will be directly proportional to other developments. This is non-negotiable.

Let us look at the engine.

This is the heart of any mechanical device.

The automobile is just the housing for engines.

Generators, from the 750watts (I pass my neighbour), to huge turbines at power stations are driven by engines, whichever way engine is now defined as thermal, hydro or internal-combustion mechanical device.

Prof Ayodele Awojobi was a genius by any definition of the term.

He was the first to attain a first class degree in Mechanical Engineering in any Nigerian institution and the first black person to be awarded Doctor of Science by the University of London for his exceptional scholarship in mechanical engineering.

His research papers, particularly in the field of vibration, are still cited by international research fellows in engineering as lately as 2010, and are archived by such publishers as the Royal Society.

Awojobi was an inventor who produced the first vehicle with two steering wheels, one each at the front and rear.

Unfortunately he could not take his invention to the next stage. The prototype has been gathering dust in a corner of the University of Lagos.

Nobody has deemed it fit to begin where Awojobi ended.

However, engines of all shapes dot the landscape, powering our economy and social life, imported from Japan, Korea, China, India and anywhere one can be made.

Sometimes I pinch myself and wondered why we are not an industrial nation, given other endowments we have.

It is interesting that we have a large iron ore deposit in the country, yet we are not an industrial nation. Japan, in contrast, does not have iron and is one of the largest producers of iron products, from super tankers to teaspoon.

The difference is in its engineering, the capacity to design and manufacture.

I ask again: when are we going to have the Nigerian car? We are all aware of the attempt by India to produce the $500 car.

Of course, we don't have to reinvent the wheel, but we should be able to at least translate the theories of engineering we learnt in school into practice.

The problem basically can be summed into just three: government, entrepreneurship and research.

Through policies, the government ought to lay the groundwork for industrialisation and provide the enabling environment.

Take for instance, the national demand for electric (step-down) transformers.

This ought to be converted into the development of a huge industry for that product, considering that a lot of our communities are still rural, without access to electricity; and even in urban centres where there is electricity, distribution is still a huge problem emanating from insufficient, old and malfunctioning transformers.

Flowing from this first, i.e. the failure of government to prepare the ground, entrepreneurship also became a problem.

Engineering is complex and capital intensive. It is too risky in an environment of policy inconsistency and absence of government support.

That is why a lot, if not most, engineers avoid manufacturing.

They would rather engage in consultancy that is relatively safe and where return on investment is quicker.

The third, which is a derivative of the earlier mentioned two is the dearth of research.

This brings us back again to mechanical engineering education in the country.

Our engineers are in top engineering firms and positions in Europe and the Americas primarily because they earned their degrees there or were exposed to their research facilities.

The problem therefore is not in their human capacity. However, the evidence of the low quality of our engineering is pasted all around us.

How many of our automobile technicians can handle any car that is five years and below satisfactorily? In most cases, we take these cars to the dealers' garages. Well, they may not be certified engineers but they are the repositories and therefore the reflection of our engineering capacity.

Look again at our factories.

Except we want to deceive ourselves, the core sections are manned by Asians and Europeans.

There is a huge debate on whether they are more competent than our people or that they are there because most of these factories are owned by Asians.

This argument however is not helped by the fact that even our indigenous entrepreneurs also prefer to employ Asians or Europeans to man key posts.

We must not shy from admitting that over the years, the educational sector had progressively been geared towards paper certification at the expense of skill acquisition.

The engineering courses are also victims of this malaise.

It is so bad now that those who read the so-called professional courses are not readily employable but have to be trained and retrained before they can acquire the needed skills for their job competencies.

This then requires a comprehensive review of the curriculum of engineering in our institutions and a reengineering towards skill acquisition.

One of the ways to develop engineering is to encourage science education at the primary school level upward. Mathematics and physics are the base sciences for engineering.

There is still largely a myth surrounding science as an esoteric subject which only those endowed by the gods can comprehend.

The impression is given largely that only the exceptionally brilliant students can understand and study science while the rest should concern themselves with the liberal arts and the social sciences.

This impression is wrong and should be corrected.

Science should be encouraged in schools, right from the kindergarten and its teaching should be simplified as much as possible.

Conscious efforts should be made to teach science first for knowledge sake but ultimately for problem solving purpose.

I did not mention funding, not because it is not a problem, but because it is a problem emanating from the other factors just mentioned.

If these other problems are addressed, I believe access to funds would no longer be a barrier.

Indeed, part of the duty of the government would have included setting the parameters for accessing funds for engineering development and entrepreneurship.

It is not my intention to engage in self deprecation, considering also that I am involved.

It is my desire however to arouse us as a body and be the vanguard of our nation's economic development.

After all, it was Aristotle who said that those who want to move the world must first move themselves.

Once again, let me thank the institution for giving me the platform to express my views.

I sincerely hope that this conference will provoke questions and nudge our conscience and provide the impetus for turn around.

I must also not fail to acknowledge the distinguished engineers, captains of industries and other eminent persons who have come to attend this conference. I say welcome and have a successful meeting.

I thank you for your kind attention.

Osun Defender