By Moses Nosike

Engineer Olutosin Ogunmola, MNSE, PMP is the Chairman, The Nigerian Society of Engineers, Ikeja branch. He is another Nigerian that causes positive changes anywhere he is called to serve following his belief that things don’t just happen but people make things happen. The young articulate Engineer, since assuming office as the chairman of Ikeja branch of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, has recorded achievements to reckon with.

In this interview with Moses Nosike, he reveals reasons Nigeria as a nation has not attained a reasonable feat in national development even after 60 years of independence, and why the engineering sector has to contribute its best to national development, therefore calling for a national roundtable on the way forward. Excerpts:

Why was The Nigerian Society of Engineers Ikeja branch created?

Ikeja branch of the Nigerian Society of Engineers was created in 1993 and the idea started with Late Engr. Olu Awoyinfa, who was a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers. The creation of a Branch in Ikeja was to key into the overall objective of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, which is to meet the professional and welfare needs of Engineers; in this case to serve the interest of Engineers working in and around Ikeja, considering the massive Ikeja industrial layout with a huge number of Engineers working therein.

The focus is to support the career development of Engineers as the branch offers a platform for networking among the Engineers and facilitates collaboration with relevant stakeholders to advance the professional development of Engineers. It therefore became necessary to have a branch close to members’ places of work to realize this objective.

In what ways has the objective been achieved, with particular reference to training and up-scaling members’ skills?

The way we operate, just like I earlier said, focuses on the professional and welfare needs of members, which are some of those things you mentioned, that is, training and skills development; these are the professional needs of engineers. The branch functions primarily through its standing committees and one of the committees is the Technical and Professional Development Committee.

To a very large extent, over the years, the branch has been able to effectively make the right impacts on the professional development of its members. We have created platforms for seminars to help members keep abreast of developments in their respective field and this has become a regular feature of our monthly meetings as technical sessions.

We have also collaborated with expert organizations to conduct specific trainings across different areas of development in the engineering profession. And what we are going ahead to do is to now create a training centre within our secretariat that would actually further facilitate training and skills development for members.

One other channel we have over the years utilized to realize this objective is the conduct of industrial and technical visits to engineering-based organizations, which serve as avenues for the right kind of exposure for members and platforms for mutually-benefitting working relationships between the branch and various industrial outfits to the overall benefit of our members and the profession at large.

Since you assumed office as the chairman of Ikeja branch, tell us some of the impacts your office has made around Ikeja & its environs?

It was our intention upon the resumption of office to make impacts on the immediate environment within which we operate, thereby becoming an influential corporate citizen and this is instructive as we operate in the capital of Lagos state. And so, one of the things we immediately took up was to undertake the Engineering Index & Infrastructure Scorecard project for Lagos state as our way of making contributions towards planning & budgeting by the government.

As professionals, we have the capacity to understudy the infrastructure stock of the state as well as the engineering index, which are the factors that determine the development of a society. We have been able to undertake that, and during our Engineering Week in August 2021, we presented the preliminary report to the Lagos state governor.

We have also gone ahead to derive a framework of collaboration with stakeholders both in the private and public sectors some of which include the State Ministry of Transportation and the State Ministry of Science & Technology where, as part of the engagements under a bipartite working arrangement with the Ministry of Transportation, we had put forward a proposal to install a 3D zebra crossing on Oba Ogunji road where our secretariat is located.

And as part of such ongoing collaborations, we had worked with the Vehicle Inspection Services of Lagos state to conduct an awareness session on vehicle maintenance for public transport motorists at the Agege Motor Park as part of the activities during our 2021 Engineering Week.

Also, our collaborations with some private organizations within Ikeja and environs have also yielded opportunities of internships and jobs with great impacts on our teeming young engineers. And we are currently constructing an Engineering Resource Tower within our Secretariat complex, which will house an engineering workshop, a digital centre and an innovation hub. This will no doubt change the landscape of our environment in many respects.

Engineering as a sector, would you say it has contributed immensely to nation building?

Engineering profession has not exactly contributed enough to national development. And this may not be the fault of the engineers themselves, it largely has to do with having the enabling environment. There’s no gainsaying the fact that there is no development without engineering. In making reference to developed climes, you only talk about development in terms of engineering feats. So when you come here and say the country is not developed, it is simply that we have not allowed engineering to thrive.

Again, this is part of the initiatives we are working on. That is why we came up with the concept called, ‘integrated engineering development’ which was the theme of the 2021 Engineering Week. One thing is that engineering is very broad, it is more of a way of life; the only way it would thrive and translate into national development is where there is a concerted effort for all the segments of the profession to work hand in hand.

When you look at the developed nations, there is always a collaboration, a working arrangement between the engineering academia and the engineering industry. And that is where you talk of research institutes such that when the industry runs into a challenge, they walk back to the academia and working hand in hand, developmental strides evolve.

And at the same time, you see the government also supporting with legislations, policies and adequate funding that would advance such strides. So, not having the right impacts of engineering here is to the extent that we have not been able to facilitate a framework of such integrated engineering development where all stakeholders have a shared ambition of development.

It is such a holistic engagement of development ambitions with a drive towards well-defined set goals of determining specific areas and corresponding timelines we want to develop what would be known as ‘Nigerian technology’ that can accelerate having engineering play a critical role in national development on a concrete note.

Could this be seen as part of the reasons when it matters most, government will rely on foreign technocrats to do most jobs?

To a large extent, it still fits into that. It is all about our national evolution beyond the service-level engagement of contractors for engineering work. You look at an average Nigerian, we have this natural predisposition for what is foreign and you will see people take pride in imported goods. It is part of our mentality.

The redemption of the situation will start with the leaders in government taking the lead in national renaissance. It was said of Mahatma Gandhi at the time he led India that he proposed India was no longer going to wear anything foreign, even at a time they had not developed capacity in that regard but he was resolute about it to the point he said they would rather go naked than wear foreign clothing. That is the mentality that would turn things around.

The truth of the matter is that with the quality of engineering study in Nigeria, even with antiquated workshops and labs in some instances, Nigerian engineers would still hold their own against their counterparts from anywhere in the world and that’s due to the level of commitment inherent in us as Nigerians to put in our best in all that we do.

You would found situations where Nigerians who struggled to have average results in Nigerian schools get to do extremely well outside the shores of the country and that underscores the fact that there is nothing anybody coming from outside Nigeria would be able to do that Nigerians wouldn’t be able to do. That’s without prejudice to the fact that we still have a lot of grounds to cover in terms of engineering education.

Without doubt, Nigerian engineers are up to the task. It is only left for us to look inwards. And it is a task we also have to take up as Engineering professionals. It is for engineers to have proper engagement frameworks with the government and that is why this is part of what we are driving in Lagos State as a Branch where we are working with the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the government to create bipartite working groups. Few weeks ago, we commenced work on the one with the Lagos State Ministry of Science and Technology. Once we have such relationships solidified, they can begin to see the capacities inherent in Nigerian engineers.

Taking it further, it all comes down to the issue of standards and quality. Once those are well defined such that the minimum standards required for any job given are clearly defined complete with extant codes as well as having efficient monitoring and evaluation frameworks for supervision entrenched without compromises, indigenous engineers would certainly deliver.

It is indeed something that must engage our minds as a nation that after over 60 years of Independence, it is still the Chinese that are building our railways and power plants while the Germans are the ones substantially building our roads, etc, etc.; whereas we have been studying engineering for well over 50 years. It is something of a great concern that we must have conversations around in order to start believing more in ourselves.

At this juncture, what would you want government to do so that we begin to have a holistic approach that would yield desired results?

Indeed, government has to take the lead. And the way to take the lead is to actually engage the stakeholders, the same way that we always look out for political solutions such as national confabs that bring political stakeholders together for discussions on how to amend or create new constitutions at critical points in our national life is the same way we should convoke a national stakeholders’ roundtable on engineering development, where the issue of integrated engineering development can be brought to the table for national engagement on a clear plan and path to becoming a production economy and an industrial giant as a nation. It must be approached with that level of consciousness and seriousness.

What the government must do is to identify for the roundtable, stakeholders comprising of the academia and the industry, covering areas of engineering study, research, practice, skill development, materials development, standards, etc, etc. on an engineering sectoral basis to derive, as the technical component of our national development plan, a national roadmap on engineering development, embedding an integrated development framework.

I’ll give the example of the US when President John F. Kennedy inspired the nation towards a common vision of putting a man on the Moon in 10 years. Even though Kennedy was assassinated before the end of his tenure of office, the nation went on to realize the vision a year ahead of schedule. Things don’t just happen anywhere in the world; they are made to happen.

There must therefore be a concerted effort led by the government for a framework of engagement, starting with the existing agencies of government such as the National Automotive Design & Development Council, for an example and similar others in the different sectors, to facilitate a ‘Nigerian-made’ vision amongst stakeholders on different engineering infrastructure and products through the national roadmap on engineering development that will be a dedicated working plan for all tiers of government, backed up with legislations that will commit governments over several years to the growth and development of the Nigerian technology across several sectors of Engineering.

We must indeed derive a sectoral-based national integrated engineering development roadmap that would derive strategies around the promotion and funding of invention and design hubs that are fully linked with investors for the mass production of quality technical products in order for us as a nation to be elevated from just largely functioning in the operation and maintenance spectrum of Engineering as consumers of foreign technologies to growing capacity in conception, design and development in the different fields of Engineering as sine qua non for sustainable national development.