By EBELE ORAKPO

There is no doubt that technology and innovation are the two ingredients Nigeria needs to drive her development as it is believed that innovation drives technology, technology drives development while development builds the nation. Many Nigerians have proven their mettle in the field of research and innovation but then, as the saying goes, a prophet is not honoured in his own country.

As a result, Nigeria has failed to use the abundant talents within to push her development efforts. Rather, outsiders have recognised and tapped into these talents and their works while the nation remains impoverished in the midst of plenty. A real paradox!

In this chat with the Director-General, National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Dr. Umar Bindir, he spoke on his works in the Pacific, helping in no small way to boost the economies of those islands. He, however, regretted that although we have all these technologies here, we have failed to make use of them to improve the lot of Nigerians. Excerpts:

Hydraulic ram pump:
In his continued quest to make life more meaningful for rural dwellers, Dr. Bindir applied himself to finding solutions using existing local knowledge.

The Hydraulic ram pump is a pump that requires no external power source, designed for hilly areas. He noticed that most settlements were on top of hills while their water source was at the bottom because of history of war. So they must come down to get water.

“I came up with an innovation that would solve this problem using existing knowledge and literature. How can water be pumped from the bottom to the top in a rural community without electricity? The hydraulic ram pump is a pumping system that requires no electricity, solar or wind. It uses the energy of the flowing water to pump itself.”

Kerosene-powered deep freezer…one of  Bindir’s projects

Although he built a prototype, tested it on a hilly environment and it worked, it was not developed because “in Nigeria, we do not have that system to cope with the gap between research results/development and industrial application. This gap requires time, money and facilities,” he stated.

Groundnut oil extraction device:
Having watched his mother extract oil from groundnut cake traditionally while growing up, he felt the need to do something to make the process easier. He modernised the whole process and came up with the groundnut oil extraction device.

“I produced a composite machine for communities in the Pacific. They have a lot of facilities from the World Bank, UNDP and government. They funded projects and recognised some of our efforts. We trained local artisans on how to make this and they were using it all over the place.

“I learnt this technology from my mother and just translated the whole thing technically to become an engineering device. But again, we have failed to actually move it to the next level to become an employer of labour, an opportunity to showcase Nigeria technologically.”

Vegetable/Fruit storage system for rural areas:
Nigerian farmers lose a lot of farm produce due to lack of proper storage facilities. To help mitigate this loss, Bindir who rose to the position of Associate professor before leaving the university system, designed a system to help farmers preserve their vegetables and fruits.

“Once these vegetables are left in the sun, within two – four hours, they are gone and all the labour for three to six months is gone. But we have the traditional knowledge,” he said.

“You would have seen Hausa vegetable sellers with their bottles of water from which they constantly spray water by hand on the vegetables. When you have a thin layer of water on the vegetables and the sun heats the water, it evaporates and evaporation causes cooling.”

Armed with this traditional knowledge and literature, he came up with an evaporative cooling system using ordinary grass or coconut husk or sponges that grow on walls. He arranged them in a particular way to make a pad. Above the pad is a water tank with holes to wet it.

“The pad is designed in such a way that water and air can pass through. Then there is a chamber with a door and on the other side of the chamber, you need to have a fan sucking air through the pad but the fan will require electricity but there is no electricity in the village and using batteries will be expensive. So we came up with an invention. We put a big pipe at one end, painted it black so when the sun heats it, the air inside the pipe rises and produces the fan effect.

“This system can be placed in the market and vegetable and fruits are placed in it. You find that as air is rising, water is dripping through the pipe, air is moving in and your vegetable will keep for at least a week. I was able to manufacture some of these. We have this technology in Nigeria but again, we have failed to take it to the next level to ensure that it becomes a player in our economy.”

Dr. Umar Bindir

Water Desalination System:
The Pacific islands have a case of water, water everywhere but none to drink because sea water is salty. Bindir came to their rescue by inventing a water desalination system.

“I invented and designed a very effective system that can harvest water from the sea, leaving the salt behind. It does not need electricity or batteries, it uses the heat of the sun. This made me a star in those islands. We made a number of models, some float on the sea while some sit on the edge of the sea, harvesting three to six litres of water per day and you can have as many as you like,” he stated.

Solar water heater:
The experience we got from the water desalination system made me to come up with a solar water heater. In the Pacific, there was need for hot water in hospitals, restaurants, schools etc so the consummate engineer came up with a device that can heat water to temperatures of 70 -90 degrees just using the sun.

He said; “I want to come up with systems that will be compatible with our local hospitals, schools, eateries etc whereby you just sit it on the outside, no wire attached to it and immediately the sun rises, the radiation is absorbed and at temperatures of 20 -25 and sometimes it rises to 30, you can boil water. It is free energy.”

Slaughtering kit for small scale poultry:
Dr. Bindir also came up with a system of slaughtering chickens in a much sanitised manner. “I was opportune to work on an island where they needed to use every part of the bird. Example, for chickens, the feathers are used as bedding material, the blood is coated and treated and used as animal feed.

The water and the excreta are harvested and used to generate biogas and the remnants are used on the vegetable gardens as fertilisers. They are like most communities in developing countries where the head and intestines are eaten. It was very complicated unlike in western countries. So I designed a small scale slaughter house that can cope with all these.

This is one thing that design engineers are very well known for. You go to a system, you study the system without changing their behaviour; you then provide a facility that fits the system.” Till today, it is working.

“Again, the knowledge is available in Nigeria but the money required to empower the inventor to build the prototype and take it to the next level, is not available, therefore it does not enable knowledge workers of my type who are in their millions in Nigeria, sitting with knowledge, to actually move to the next level.“