By Obas Esiedesa, Abuja

As part of efforts to boost manpower capacity for the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry, NESI, the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited, NDPHC, has engaged 36 fresh engineering graduates for a one year internship programme.

The company said the move, which would become annual, is intended to offer hands-on opportunity to young Nigerian engineering graduates for a possible career path in the power industry.

Nigeria with a population of 200 million people generates just under 5,000 Megawatts of power and it is rated one of the poorest in the world. According to the World Bank, one out every 10 persons globally without access to electricity lives in Nigeria.

Speaking during an orientation ceremony for the interns, the Executive Director, Corporate Services, NDPHC, Nkechi Mba explained that 36 interns were selected from the six geopolitical zones across the country with each zone producing six.

Mba noted that the concept of the internship programme “is to enable graduates of engineering to have practical experience because we found out over the years that we had the best resources in NDPHC in terms of power sector engineering knowledge and we wanted to pass that on. And also help young engineering graduates to be able to access that knowledge that would give them an advantage in trying to find jobs in the sector or finding a career path.

“It is not really a recruitment exercise but because NDPHC has the largest power sector assets, the programme gives the graduates an advantage”, she added.

Also speaking, the Executive Director, Generation, Engr. Kassim Abdullahi said the interns would be sent to Calabar, Benin, Sapele and Omotosho power plants.

He noted that the plants are very efficient and have contributed a lot to the national grid, adding that the interns would “learn a lot from participating in the daily activities of the plants including generation, troubleshooting, maintenance and a lot of things from the capable engineers we have at these stations”.

Earlier, the General Manager, Human Resources, Mrs. Funke Nwankwo said the NDPHC graduate internship programme is a corporate social responsibility programme aimed at improving manpower capacity for the power sector in Nigeria.

“It ensures that young engineering graduates get the right training from seasoned professionals across our power plants. They will get first hand interaction with how our power plants work in real life”, she added.