The Chairman of Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) Nigerian Content Committee, Engr. Chris Okoye (FNSE) spoke to DEBO OLADIMEJI on the need to actualise the Nigerian Content Act after presenting a paper on ‘Human Capacity Shortages: A Case For Revitalisation of Technical Trade Schools and Polytechnics’ during the Nigerian Content Committee workshop at the 2012 NSE conference in Ilorin, Kwara State capital recently.

What is the position of Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) on Nigerian Content Act that came to force on April 22, 2010?

THE Nigerian content act is meant to create a window that will enable every aspect of engineering work to be done internally rather than doing it outside the country. It is the platform that will enable us to create an opportunity for local people to participate in the development of the country.

More importantly is that the standard is also going to be world-class. Therefore, the fact that it will be done in Nigeria does not mean that we are going to reduce the standard. That means really what we are asking for is that Nigerians must be prepared to be competent, capable and have the capacity to deliver on this mandate. That is really what the Nigerian content is all about.

How prepared are Nigerians engineers to meet this challenge?

Nigerian engineers are well prepared to face the challenge. What the government is saying is that even as a foreign company, they can come and do their business in Nigeria. The government wants them to open an office in Nigeria and it is in this office that all their designs will be done. It means that they will have to recruit Nigerians to participate in the project.

Again, if they are going to bring in foreigners to participate in the work, they must go through a process that will ensure that we do not have Nigerians that are qualified to do that job. The third thing is that they must also get Nigerians to understudy the expatriates. So, in that case they will learn and be able to make sure that next time around, they can repeat that process.

Expatriates quotas will become relevant where we do not have the capacity to respond to the operation we are saddled with. The problem in Nigeria is that even when the experts were brought in, they did not create an opportunity for Nigerians to learn; to work side by side with the expatriates so that Nigerians could understudy the expatriates and learn. Over time they would have mastered the concept and therefore be able to stand on their own. Unfortunately, these expatriates come in to deplete the resources of the country without adding any value to the growth of the country. They don’t have any commitment to Nigeria. In that way, we are losing quite a lot of resources. The amount of money that is leaving the country is so much. Then you find that foreign companies working here are not adding any value to the economy of the country. The concept of the local content is that you must add value to the Nigerian economy.

What are your plans for the oil and gas sector?

We are also worried that we are just selling the crude oil; we are not adding any value. If we are able to refine our crude oil in Nigeria we would have been able to create tremendous opportunities.

We are a raw material driven country. If the Nigerian content is handled as quickly as it should be, it will go along away to change the attitude of not adding any value to our products. When the oil industry came over 50 years ago, they did not talk about the Nigerian content. That is why it took the government so long to bring the local content into the oil and gas law. Why wait another 50 years in the power sector? Why not allow the local content to become a part of the power sector now so that Nigeria will be a key participant in the power sector?  Why not begin the manufacturing of all sorts of things that are used in the power sector? In that way, you are adding value. You are creating job opportunities and we can find the spare parts to repair the equipment when they get bad because that is actually part of the problem; you buy an equipment and sooner or later you cannot get the spare parts to repair them.

What is the government saying about the Act?

The government is quite enthusiastic about the Act. That is why the act was passed and signed by President Goodluck Jonathan. That led to the setting up of the Nigeria Content Monitoring Board, which is now the regulating body for the implementation of the Content Act. Their primary responsibility is not just to regulate but also to ensure the process of domiciliation and the domesticating is not hindered and the law is progressing.

I think that the problem now is that Nigerians have not clearly seen the impact of that law. That is why we have decided to make it the theme of this year’s NSE conference in Ilorin. The theme of the conference is Nigerian Content Development: The Past, Present And Future. We tried to look at where we are coming from, where are we now, where are we going. I believe that we have not been able to find a way to respond to the needs of the people. Most engineers are not quite convinced that the law has made positive impacts on them. But one is not surprised because there is always the problem if implementation in Nigeria.

So what are the challenges?

The first challenge we have is that of building up the capability and the competence of Nigerians so as to be able to make them world-class and ready to grapple with the job that are being thrown up as a result of the Nigerian content development. That is the biggest challenge, particularly in the area of technicians and artisans.

We have been able to show clearly that there is a major problem in Nigeria. I am not quite sure that the problem we have is in the area of engineering. We have quite a lot of engineers that can deliver. But I think the place where we have the greatest problem is the absence of qualified, competent, and capable technicians and artisans. It has made it impossible for us to deliver project without compromising standard. We have to begin the process of re-inventing the wheel that gave us the type of technicians and artisans we had before the war.

The second challenge is to be able to provide outlets where you can infuse these trained hands because the moment you begin to develop the hands, you must create opportunities where they can continue to expand on their competences. By exposing them to regular work, they can expand their competences, their capacities and capabilities. That aspect of it is something that will require almost everybody coming together. The absence of basic manufacturing outlets is an obvious indication that we are not doing as well as we should. You would notice that the contribution of manufacturing sector to our GDP today is less than four per cent, which is very insignificant.

The third challenge is security. People cannot invest in an environment in which there is no security. So, I am talking about having the industry people can expand on their competences and the security of the environment in which they find themselves. If the rule of law and order is not operating in our environment, there is a limit to what can be done.

These are the challenges. However, they are not insurmountable but it is a question of whether we are prepared to show leadership. We should all be decisive and do what is right.

Nigerian engineers have the problem of collecting contracts from the government and sub-contracting them to multinational companies. Also, when they make money from the contracts they get, they usually invest in other sectors instead of building capacity. What is your take on that?

There are bad eggs in every profession. That is why you have Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) to ensure that individuals that make up the institution comply with the law. Therefore, there must be strict regulations that must be put in place. The public must work collaboratively and cooperatively to be able to make it work.

COREN registers constructing outfits and as well as individuals that make up a particular company. But there are still a lot to be done.

And then when you talk about the Nigerian companies, the question that arises is who are really the Nigerian companies? The absence of regulation is probably a great problem.

How do we solve the dearth of technical colleges in the country?

There are too many problems to deal with. There are problem of schools not being there, equipment not being there, and teachers not being there. The teachers we have today cannot obviously deliver on what the artisans and technicians we require. How many Nigerians can really teach people good technology? They have not even learned themselves. Where did they learn it? May be we need to do a survey so that we can re-invite all these retirees and hopefully may begin to do re-orientation and retraining; what you might call train the trainers. Some of them can go overseas and be retrained. There are quite a lot of people who are retiring from the oil companies that are still able to deliver on some training to our people.

What advice do you have for young engineers?

The final year students are the kind of people we should be looking up to now to change the value system in Nigeria, which is already a disaster. Even if we created all that I am talking about without the right value being brought back into the system, you will still find out that you are going to train a bunch of people who will be unable to respond diligently to the way things are done.