We’ll ease mobility of African engineers – FAEO president

Last year, you were elected FAEO president. Being first Nigerian to hold this post, how does it feel?I really feel humbled and elated at the same time because the whole journey started when we went to the general assembly of the federation in May 2012. That was where I was elected president-elect. That time, a […]

Last year, you were elected FAEO president. Being first Nigerian to hold this post, how does it feel?
I really feel humbled and elated at the same time because the whole journey started when we went to the general assembly of the federation in May 2012. That was where I was elected president-elect. That time, a South African took over as president of FAEO.
By the position alone, I was very elevated. When I disclosed this to the council of Nigerian Society of Engineers, they were full of jubilation and congratulated me. We wrote a letter from the NSE [Nigerian Society of Engineers] to the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and he congratulated us for achieving that feat. I got another letter from the governor of Kano State, Engr. Rabiu Kwankwaso.
So when we came to the general assembly of the federation last year November in Abuja, automatically it was smooth transition. Immediately after the general assembly of the year, we did the change of baton between myself and the former president.

How old is FAEO?
The body is dated as far back as 1972. But then it used to be called Federation of African Organisation of Engineers, FAOE. There was a long period of lull in the organization. There was also a period when our colleagues from southern Africa, particularly South Africa formed a parallel organization, African Engineers Forum, AEF. Then there was this conflict about who represents African engineering institutions in the World Federation of Engineering Organisations. That conflict had been for about 10 years between the Nigerian block and the South African block.
It was when I was president of NSE that we managed to fuse these organizations. It was high level diplomacy and politicking. We fused FAOE and AEF to form Federation of African Engineering Organisations. Instead of FAOE, it’s now FAEO – just a slight change. This was in the general assembly of 2012 which was held in Kenya. Today, there’s no such conflict. There’s no engineering institution that will represent Africa in the world engineering and other international organizations than the FAEO.

Paucity of infrastructure in Africa, does it mean African engineers aren’t helpful?
Even though we can say it’s African problem, it varies from one country to another within the continent. Certainly, Nigeria is one of the worst hit as far as infrastructure [deficit] is concerned. If you take infrastructure ranking of African countries, Nigeria can’t come even 20th. The deficit is so much because we have a large population and the structures aren’t there. The challenge is enormous. Certainly, that’s why we come together as African engineers to see how we can tackle this problem.
If somebody from China or India can come to any African country and practice or get opportunities, why not an African company? We’re looking at possibility of easing mobility of African engineers and African engineering companies. Let’s open up our minds to venture into development programmes within Africa. If a Nigerian company is good enough, why can’t it take a job in Ghana or Sierra Leone or in the Gambia? Certainly, it’s leadership issue.

Have African engineering companies the capacity to do these jobs?
I’m not saying that we can do everything in its entirety – from alpha to omega. And there’s no such country even. There’s no country that can boast of developing itself alone – probably China. Even China still imports some expertise from other parts of the world. But there has to be a deliberate policy on the leadership to develop indigenous capacity.
By this we mean deliberate patronage because companies are global because they had been getting consistent patronage over the years. So they get opportunity to have a lot of jobs. When you have a lot of jobs, you employ, when you employ, you train and retrain your staff. You keep learning every day, improving yourself.
And when the leadership takes that decision, it also has to be able to deal with any company that violates contract conditions because some companies do violate contract conditions. According to the contract, maybe they would have employed certain number of persons, they don’t and nobody penalizes them. In other climes, there’s no way you can handle any job without adhering strictly to the contract conditions. That gives way for continuous improvement of local expertise.
We’re graduating so many engineers, technologists, technicians, if we don’t have job for them, what will they do? They’ll be willing tool for destruction.
We’re not unmindful of the fact that not every African country even the engineering institutions have regulatory bodies. We want to make all African countries have engineering institutions. That’s the only way you can have the one-stop-shop to get the crop of engineers you need to develop that country.

Can we quantify what Africa is losing to the Asians, Americans and Europeans as a result of this import of skills and expertise?
I don’t have the data in monetary terms. But in labour terms, what percentage of Africans don’t have jobs? We talk of unemployment rate of about 24 percent in Nigeria. When you talk of unemployment figures in spite of all these projects taking place, it means we leave our jobs to other parts of the world. Infrastructure development is not about engineers only. It’s all encompassing: it involves engineers, technologists, labourers, accountants, lawyers, even journalists. Maybe journalists are the only category of professionals that aren’t endangered. I don’t see foreign journalists taking your jobs [laughter].
In Nigeria, there’s a project site where I saw a foreigner making excavation. Excavation! Manual excavation of a bungalow. I had to shout on that site. People are ready to bring all sorts of people from their places. The unemployment we have isn’t unassociated with this kind of attitude. Once they take the job, the conditions given them are so fluid and then they bring everybody – even somebody who’ll make coffee for them, somebody who’ll do bed for them. If you look at the unemployment figures in Africa, they’re not unassociated with this.
 I can’t see a country like China [with 1.6 billion people] boast of very low unemployment figure. I went to China. I read in a newspaper that 80 percent of their graduates get jobs before they leave the walls of the university. The rest of the 20 percent, about 90 percent of them gets job within one year of graduation.
Because they know, the priority of government is to make its people happy. How do you make the people happy? By engaging them, making ensure that they’re very busy doing what they like doing, then any other thing will fall in place.

What has been African engineers’ experience with the African Development Bank. Is it really helping?
The new FAEO is almost three years old now. Actually, we have reached out to the African Development Bank when my predecessor was president and interactions with it were very positive. It’s ready to partner with us on some projects that will see to the development of African engineers. But we have to work in conjunction with some organizations because it doesn’t deal directly with NGOs. But we can in partnership with organizations like the African Union. We’ll get endorsement of our projects with the African Union then it will sponsor our projects.
Right now, what we’re trying to do with African Union is a set of projects that will be sponsored by the African Development Bank Group. Our relationship is positive.
You had a score card meeting in Abuja last year. Have we any timeline to show we can improve infrastructure?
This infrastructure scorecard is something that has been talked about over the years. I commend the current president of NSE, Engr. Ademola Olorunfemi for the bold step to come out with infrastructure scorecard committee which is working with committee members, engineers who’re from other countries where this infrastructure scorecard is being developed to the fullest – in South Africa and Ghana. We hold that assignment dearly. The conference for this year holding in November is on Strategies for Implementation of the Integrated Infrastructure Masterplan.