Our manufacturing sector is dead — NSE President, Babagana

In this interview with the Publisher, Nigerian NewsDirect, Dr. Sam Ibiyemi, the  President and Chairman in Council of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Engineer Babagana Mohammed, speaks on the exploits of Nigerian Engineers and the giant strides they are making within Nigeria and beyond. He stressed on their contributions to the development of the Nigerian economy and the need for the Nigerian government to take deliberate efforts towards enhancing local contents. According to him, the manufacturing sector in Nigeria is seemingly dead. He asserted that while Nigeria might have  made wrong decisions in the privatisation of the power sector, it is a lesson in the development process the Country needs to learn from in moving forward. Excerpts:

As the President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, what are the contributions of the body to Nigeria’s economy?

This is a very mighty question. The contributions of the NSE to the Nigerian economy are massive. Starting from independence till date, Nigerian Engineers have participated in economic development firstly in infrastructure. The railways in Nigeria were initially done by foreigners but Nigerian Engineers participated. The same applies for the defunct NEPA as it was known or better still Electricity Company of Nigeria (ECN, PHCN among others. For ECN when it started, the Engineers manufactured the machinery. The Nigerian Technicians and Engineers were the ones they were using to operate. When you look at the developmental projects in the Country, right from roads, in 1960 how many roads did we have in Nigeria? But today even though the foreigners are taking a large part of the contracts, Nigerian Engineers are still taking part in it. So our contributions are massive, and this also cuts across education, among other breakthroughs. When I say Nigerian Engineers, we are not only in Nigeria; we are making our strides even in the outside world. When you go to other parts of the world, you find very brilliant Nigerian Engineers leading key positions. It is about knowledge. I am very proud to be a Nigerian Engineer. If you look at the contributions, you will have to appreciate Engineers and Engineering knowing fully well our background and where we are coming from. However, that doesn’t mean I am saying we are at our best. We can do more.

The report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) states that the unemployment rate in the Country had hit 33 per cent, mainly due to insecurity and work infrastructures; looking at the roles of Engineers in charge of infrastructures, what is your response to this?

In fact, it is part of our programmes to review every statistics that is released in and outside the Country because we need to track events. The NBS statistics is a report which is quoted all over and if we have any reason to attack it, we will attack it from that basis and if we have any reason to make a request for anything, we make such based on that reason. That is why we are very particular about data in NSE. NBA released the data that unemployment is on the high side. There are two basic issues. It is the desire of everybody and every profession to have a solid economy but every economy must be based on production and not on consumption. Any economy that is based on consumption cannot go far and afterwards engineering is about production. Our manufacturing sector is dead and no economy will grow without having its manufacturing sector firm, because apart from employment, it creates wealth. That is key and we are not having it in Nigeria. When you go to Kaduna State with all the textiles no company is working there. So, what do you expect but unemployment. What does unemployment breeds? Poverty and poverty breeds anger; anger breeds hatred and the ultimate end is banditry, Boko Haram and insecurity everywhere, which is not in everybody’s interest. People’s living standards have fallen and many people are not sure of their next meal. It is not good enough. So, we are policy advocates; our goal is to highlight to the Government to tell them what is to be done to get out of the mess. When President Muhammadu Buhari said he wants to pull out 100 million Nigerians out of poverty, some people understood the language differently. Some believe it is about going into farming; that doesn’t necessarily mean all average Nigerians should go into farming. He was talking about how to skill 100 million people to get out of poverty. Once you are skilled, you are no longer in poverty. Once you have something doing, you can earn a living. You wouldn’t have time to go and fight and hate somebody. That is why skilling everybody is key. The Engineers also have a part in this. To him who sells groundnut, we can help him to package his products attractively and specially to be appreciated. Everybody must not work in government because the Government cannot afford it. Gone are the days when former Military Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, said we have enough money to spend. These days you don’t have the money, talk-less of having a enough. Gone are the days when graduates are employed directly from school. Today, it is a privilege and there are competing demands for the very scarce available jobs, moreso with improved technology reducing the need for human labour. As a result of the ease of technology, many people certainly lose their jobs. It an issue we need to factor in skilling everybody to get something doing. For us in NSE, I have said I am going to skill a good number of those who Buhari said will be lifted out of poverty and we have started programmes. Right now, I have skilled over 2,000 people including about 990 women across zones in the Country. I am still reaching out to several zones. I have a goal of about 10,000 to equip in teaching them how to make soups, bleaches, toiletries and several things. There are things like soups and bleaches that we longer buy in my house, since wife got to know how to produce them. I am saving costs and we are both enjoying it. The little money I have, I can now channel it for other needs. If everybody can produce what he can use comfortably, a lot of stress would have been taken off the market and off our foreign deposit which means our economy must grow. We have passed the age of pretending. We are now in the era of reality.

In order to improve production, part of your agenda is to skill people, what kind of partnership is NSE striking with state governments across the Country?

I have gone round some states and I am still going round many states. I have sat with many governors. I have told them my perspectives; some understood while some did not, and understanding is subjective because sometimes when you make your perspectives known, some think you are looking for money. I do not have to look for money wherever I go, money will look for me. That is why sometimes people look at us (Engineers) as very arrogant people because we are intelligent. If you go to schools and check for our pass mark, you will discover it is 50 per cent in any University. So, once we can pass and make good grades, we are not ordinary. Therefore, we should be heady and troublesome. People say we are too heady and proud and of course there is no doubt about that because we are intelligent and that is also subjective. We have met with some of them who collaborated with us. You can’t leave everything for the Government. This Nigeria belongs to all of us and the Government equally belongs to us. I am not a politician, but I am part of the Government because I am paying my tax and living in Nigeria. We are the Government. When you are not involved, they will continue to bring harsh rules on you and you will suffer. For every government that is formed, you are part of the Government. Since it is in Nigeria and not in Cameroon, then you are part of it. We talked to everybody who cares to listen. We meet administrators and all important stakeholders to tell them our plans and how to address challenges.

We also know you cannot move forward without electricity. Industries are folding up because the cost of electricity is very high and this trickles down to the cost of materials to be produced. When you produce in Nigeria with the current fluctuations of power and running generators, you incur more cost than what obtains in Ghana because Ghana has more stability of electricity. Nobody produces to lose but rather to gain. Gain is the aggregate of all your cost with the profit which is what will keep you in business. Running a business is not a Father Christmas affair. It is either you make money or you lose and if you aggregate all the factors of production and you discover you are losing, that company cannot grow.

When we are talking of production, power controls about 60 per cent, how do we solve issues of power challenges?

Sometimes last year, President Buhari appointed me and other Ministers into a special committee named Presidential Power Initiative Committee, because Siemens is coming to do some works for Nigeria. President Buhari had met with the German Chancellor and agreed on modalities on how to take Nigeria out of this nightmare. They offered some sweet incentives to get us out of the issues and we are getting down to implementation stage. So, six of us were appointed into that committee, including the Minister of Power, Works, Finance, Textiles, DG of BP and myself. We are to fashion how to work with Siemens and take care of Nigeria’s position, maximise the use of the opportunity and get the implementation out quickly. We have held meetings in the villa. We are progressing and designs are going on. Power has been a complicated issue in Nigeria concerning Generation, Transmission and Distribution. You can buy generators but how do you transmit the power when it is being generated. The nature of all the poles transmitting our electricity shows there is a problem.  So, you can have the power generated and it wouldn’t get to the destination for distribution to take place to the end users. Power is not free; when you distribute, you are expected to have returns but how many people are paying the right bills. These are key issues. At the committee, we are looking at it seriously to get out of it. We should have boldness on the capacity of our power for factories to come up and job opportunities springing forth. We need to sort out these things for a peaceful life.

There have been calls from stakeholders like Aliko Dangote for President Buhari’s administration to review the privatisation the DisCos in order to end the issues of the power situation?

Aliko Dangote is an industrialist. He has a right to make his personal opinions as a businessman and from the records if you look at it very well, you will understand that there is a problem. The government privatised and sold DisCos to some people, and now you need to sit to know who are these people and what were their antecedents in the power sector, were they operators or not? How did they come into it? From what is available to us, government just patronized its promise without considerations. Things don’t work like this. These are critical national assets. You don’t just sell them to anybody. Once you want to sell any asset in Nigeria, you see South Africans running to come and buy because there is a market in Nigeria. We have done some wrong things, but that does not mean we cannot come back and review to do the right thing. I can describe some of these things as the learning stage, but for everything we do wrongly we are paying the price. Going forward, we have to learn. There is always a learning stage in the process of development. You make your silly mistakes and you come out of it with your cost attached to it and then we move forward.

Are Nigerian Engineers benefiting from the Nigerian Content?

Compared to what we used to have before, we are better now. This does not mean we cannot do better. We can always improve. I know before that we go outside the Country to do our designs but now, so many things are handled in-house which is excellent because we have developed the capacity. In terms of Acts that have been put in place to empower Nigerians, we are getting there. These Acts are designed to empower Nigerians. Government must deliberately empower Nigerian Engineers and Engineering companies to grow up. In Dubai, this is given priority. Dubai used to be a village/desert. The foreigners came to Dubai to make it the best in the world but today every facility is being managed by the Arabians. They learnt from it, improved and are now the managers. It was deliberate by the Government. They gave incentives to companies to come in and invest. They are now making money from everybody in the world because they empowered their people. 60 per cent of their people are the ones now managing the economy.

This encouragement you have talked about, in what way are you expecting the Government to come in?

Firstly, in any engineering project apart from employing engineers, the Engineering companies should be ones owned by Nigerians. Capacity has to be grown. Technical partnerships have to be signed with foreigners to do work together with indigenous companies to learn from them. They return after then to their countries but the indigenous Companies continue. Julius Berger has been in this Country for the past 40 to 50 years. By now they should have finished their work by training Nigerians and return. They have refused that deliberately. Majority of these foreign companies are not ordinarily the best in their Countries. By now, our Government should have left them out for Nigerian Companies which should have learnt the technical know-how but when you say this, it might be misconceived as if you have a company you want to flout, but I don’t have any company. If there is any project I have to do, I contract it to Nigerian companies. I don’t give them to foreign companies.

For this year, what are the programmes lined up to create awareness about the usefulness of Nigerian Engineers to the Government?

Firstly in July, we are having Skill Summit. I am going to bring all the stakeholders in the industry to discuss on the subject called Technical and Vocational Skills. We need to get it right. There used to be technical schools and colleges in our days but they have all died. Today, you no longer hear about technical schools. Engineering is a family; you have the boss, technicians, craftsmen and artisans. It is a pyramid. Everybody cannot be an Engineer to succeed. You must have technicians, artisans, and craftsmen who will do the work. It is a team work. There must be a ratio. People from other parts of the world are no more intelligent than Nigerians. Anywhere you go in the world, if you see a Nigerian you will know him. You will see him very smart, wise and very excellent. The Nigerian blood knows its own.

What legacy would you like to leave behind in office as the President of NSE?

I’m enjoying my life here. Today, I am building Nigerian Engineers and I am very happy and proud. I can say it anywhere and I have said it in many forums that: “Show me your best and I will show you my best,” “Show me who you are and I will show you who I am.” I have so many stories to tell about Nigerian Engineers. They have done extremely well. I have excellent Nigerian Women Engineers of repute on the top of the world reviewing documents and crushing lines. There are very good brains in Nigeria both men and women and they are doing extremely well. The first 16 best students in the last Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination were students who wanted to study engineering. They were given scholarships as rewards of their excellence.