A Keynote Address presented at at the 2019 COREN Engineering Assembly by Engr. Kashim Abdul Ali, FNSE, FAEng, FSESN, FAETDEW, NPoM, mni

Preamble

I feel very delighted and honoured to be invited to give this Keynote Address at this auspicious occasion of the 2019 Engineering Assembly of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN). My profound gratitude to the leadership of Council for sustaining the tempo of this flagship event, which has endured over the years, and served as a melting pot for civilised fellowship amongst engineering practitioners.

The theme, ‘Strategic Alliance Among Engineering Professionals for Enhanced Opportunities’ is surely apt going by the renewed attention engineering practice is garnering presently, as exemplified by the proclamation of the Executive Order nr. 5; and the Amendment of the COREN Act.  A strategic deployment of these instruments could change the face of engineering practice in our dear country for good. I seek to briefly point us to how this can be achieved in the course of this presentation. Let’s however start with some important background information.

History of Engineering Practice in Nigeria

The practice of engineering began in Nigeria between 1855 -1889 (more than 70 years before independence), with construction of roads, housing projects, port facilities and waterworks in Lagos by expatriate engineers¹. The first engineering consultancy firm, Messrs. Shelford Consulting Engineers started practicing in Nigeria earlier than 1898¹.

Herbert Heelas Macauley who was elected an Associate Member of the British Institution of Civil Engineers in December 1893, was the first Nigerian and most probably the first in the whole of black Africa to qualify as a professional engineer¹.

The first generation of Nigerian graduate civil engineers are:

• George Debayo Agbedi – B.Sc (1911) from Birmingham University;
• Ishola Phillips – B.Sc 1^st Class Honours (1930) Bristol University;
• Robert Starveley – graduated in 1934;
• Adekunle Coker – graduated in 1935;
• Ekundayo Ajayi – Glasgow University in 1936; and
• Adeniyi Williams – Birmingham University in 1936.

During the colonial era (before 1960), most Nigerian engineers were trained in the United Kingdom, but the first Nigerian graduate electrical engineer Oladotun Coker, trained in the USA.

Early in the 20^th century the Public Works Department Technical School was established in Lagos to give three-year training to students after secondary school to produce technicians. The Higher College Yaba was established in 1933 – 34 to train very good students from the best secondary schools where science subjects were well taught, first for two years up to the London Intermediate level, followed by another two-year course in engineering to produce “African” or “Assistant” Engineers who were placed on salaries 31 % lower than the salary of Nigerian graduate engineers trained abroad¹. A few of the products of the PWD Technical School and several students of Yaba Higher College before or after completing the college diploma programme had scholarship to go abroad to earn university degrees and industrial experience to become professional engineers.

The University College Ibadan, which was established in 1948 admitted students who had completed secondary school into the first two years of engineering degree programmes after which students who performed satisfactorily were awarded intermediate B.Sc. and admitted to British Universities to complete the remaining three years of the engineering degree programme².

The Nigerian College Zaria which ran engineering programmes, was established in 1955 and five sets of students graduated from there with B.Sc. (London) External degree from 1960 – 1964³.

A few years after Nigeria gained independence, in 1960, four universities were established, and they ran engineering programmes. The first set of students to be awarded Nigerian university degrees in engineering graduated from the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in 1965. Several more universities were established in the 1970s and the decades that followed. There are currently 153 universities in Nigeria with 40 owned by the Federal Government, 45 by State Governments and 68 privately owned.  52 of them have COREN accreditation for their engineering programmes.

There are 70 polytechnics, 27 of them owned by the Federal Government including the Federal Polytechnic of Oil and Gas and the Nigerian Army Institute of Technology and Environmental Studies; and 43 owned by State Governments. Accreditation is outsourced to the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two institutions.

There are fundamental challenges with the Technical Colleges. An evaluation in 2012, of over 300 Technical Colleges spread across the country, revealed a near collapse of that level of education but COREN is doing the best it can to persuade the State governors to deal with these challenges since schools are on the concurrent legislative list. Workshops were held in 2016, with all States represented at high levels, to draw attention to the deterioration of facilities in almost all the State schools, and proffer solutions. Not much has been achieved so far in most of the States with the exception of Lagos, Kano, Katsina and Osun.

Harmony Amongst Engineering Practitioners in Nigeria

As noted earlier, most of the early practitioners trained in the United Kingdom. In addition, Nigeria was a British colony up until independence on October 01, 1960. The natural consequence of this was the absolute modelling of the Nigerian engineering education and practice direction after the British system. As a matter of fact until the late 70s, graduates of engineering and indeed many others trained outside Britain or the British Commonwealth were viewed with contempt on suspicion of poor quality.

In the British system, responsibilities were always clearly defined. As it is perhaps common knowledge, the popular pyramid in engineering has its origin in the British system. It is no surprise therefore that there was harmony among practitioners cutting across all cadres of the profession during the colonial era and decades after, while the legacy still lasted. Things are however different now! There are all manners of petty and distractive conflicts that make engineering practice in Nigeria difficult, and personnel vulnerable. The pyramid has since inverted and the ‘centre can no longer hold’. We must however revert it. Yes indeed, we MUST! Therein lays the essence of introspection for harmonisation and strategic alliances to give significance to the COREN Amendment Act, and the strife to internationalise our qualifications through the International Engineering Alliance (IEA) platform.

COREN Amendment Act

The story of the amendment commenced actively in 2008. At my investiture as the 26^th President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Engr. Chief Adefemi Kila, FNSE, then a distinguished Senator and a long standing friend, offered to give me a gift of my choice to mark the auspicious occasion. My friends (Engrs. AA Abu, AO Mokuolu, AJ Ibrahim, UG Jibrin, SM Lawal, ATA Amusan, etc) had just pleasantly surprised me with the gift of a brand new Toyota Prado SUV, so I simply requested him to gift the engineering community instead, by sponsoring an amendment to the COREN Act. He instantly agreed and work commenced shortly afterwards. The process had its ups and downs but was still not concluded by the time I became the President of COREN in 2013.

It however came to a conclusion in 2018 by the grace of God, goodwill, encouragement and perseverance of Hon Toby Okechukwu and his Works Committee members, Engineers in the National Assembly, Senator Ali Ndume, COREN Council Members, Engr. Ibrahim K Inuwa and his committee members, Engr Suleiman H Adamu, Mr. Babatunde R Fashola, Abubakar Malami, Engrs. Kamila W Maliki, Dr Adebisi Shonubi, Dr EJS Uujamhan, Adekunle O Mokuolu, Ali A Rabiu, Ahmad Yabagi, Bolu Ajibolu, Tanko Gyang, Zakari Ayitogo, Ahmadu Rufai, Leo Okereke, Ramsy Nana, Nnana Udeh, amongst others.

The new Act has broadened the powers of COREN to prosecute, regulate industrial training of engineering students, and strengthen local content utilisation in engineering.

The high points of the new Act include:

1. Legislative empowerment of the Engineering Regulation Monitoring (ERM) programme;
2. Provision of special funds for ERM;

• Extension of the prosecutorial powers of COREN to cover both engineering and non-engineering personnel; and

1. Mandatory submission of admission and graduation lists of all engineering schools to COREN for proper record keeping and monitoring; among others

The next stage is putting the framework for implementation. This requires some administrative processes in the offices of the Attorney General and the Accountant General. With the coming on board of the Attorney General, that can commence in earnest. It must be noted however that effective implementation is the responsibility of all. We must rise up to protect our profession by reporting infringements irrespective of who is involved. That’s the only way we can derive maximum benefits from the law. The same thing applies to the operation of the Executive Order nr. 5!

The International Engineering Alliance (IEA)

IEA is the global organisation for benchmarking engineering qualifications. It seeks to improve engineering education and competence globally by setting standards, best practice accreditation processes and mutual recognition of accredited engineering programmes. It has three main organs:

1. Washington Accord for Engineers;
2. Sydney Accord for Technologists; and
3. Dublin Accord for Technicians

COREN has worked hard over the years to raise the standard of engineering education in Nigeria towards earning for our country world best standard. We narrowly missed being a provisional signatory of the Washington Accord (WA) by a marginal vote of 01 at the last IEA GA in Hong Kong China. With the correction of the minor errors, we should be in at the 2020 GA in South Africa (the only African country that is a signatory). One of the critical requirements of WA is a switch from the traditional system to Outcome Based Engineering (OBE) education curriculum. To this end, COREN accreditation of undergraduate engineering programmes is now based on the OBE BMAS and most of the universities have complied.

Conclusion

In concluding, let me reiterate the significance of synergy among all engineering practitioners. Petty conflicts have profoundly distracted us so much we are shifting focus from our targets. We must wake up to a new dawn of strategic thinking, pragmatic solutions, trust and confidence in ourselves to fully domesticate engineering in Nigeria.

Engineering is the nexus of real development globally, and it will continue to be. We cannot therefore afford to remain aloof when the world is integrating and communities are fusing as a result of the power of engineering and technology.

The regulatory laws have been strengthened so engineering can be better practiced and entrenched in our society. We must put these Laws, Orders and Regulations to use by reporting all cases of infringements irrespective of who the culprits are.

COREN has become a global currency, and so practitioners registered by her must up their games, as monitoring standards are going to be raised to meet the standards required by the status that signatory of the Washington Accord, and later Sydney and Dublin Accords will confer.

Ladies and gentlemen, Nigeria is destined for greatness and engineers are destined to be the throttle!

Thank you, for your attention.

References

1. JF Ade Ajayi, History of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, The Nigerian Society of Engineers, 1995
2. Dapo F Asaju and Alvan Ewuzie, Bolude Oyebolu: Life and Ministry of a Nigerian Engineer, University Plress Plc, Ibadan, 2009;
3. MO Olaniyan, Private Communication, October 25, 2015