Capital flight plaguing the country must be curtailed if the oil industry domesticates training of oil and gas workers, Dr. Afe Mayowa, President of Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria (OGTAN), has said.

Ikoyi cash seized by EFCC

Speaking ahead of the forthcoming maiden edition of the Nigeria Education Summit of the association billed for April 16, Mayowa emphasised the need to deepen the domestication of training as well as promotion of research and development in the oil sector. According to him, OGTAN has the capacity to train oil and gas workers to international standards.

He explained that the focus of the conference is to explore ways by which the obvious gap between the tertiary institutions and the oil industry can be closed particularly in the area of research and development, thereby ensuring that Nigerian university graduates are employable after graduation.

“Today, research funds running into millions of dollars set aside annually by oil majors are splashed on foreign institutions as our own tertiary institutions are ill-prepared for such tasks. Therefore, the planned summit is bringing together major stakeholders in the education sector and the oil and gas to discuss their experiences in order to chart a way forward at resolving this obvious gap.

The one-day summit on “Sustaining Nigerian Content Development through Quality Education and Training: Challenges and Prospects” would be chaired by a former Head of State, Dr Yakubu Gowon, he said.

The theme of the conference, “Sustaining Nigerian Content through Quality Education and Training: Challenges and Prospects,” Afe said, would offer the association a chance to diagnose real problems before solutions can be offered.

“This is the only way the Nigerian content development can be sustained,” he added. He also said there is a need for a review of curriculum to meet contemporary needs, because the university curriculum doesn’t meet the practical needs of the industry. The one day conference will be chaired by former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, under whom the first indigenisation law was signed in 1969.