Why Africa, Nigeria must commercialize research - Ayo Adeniyi

By Anthony Isibor

AYO Adeniyi, Executive Director, The Welding Federation, TWF, says that Africa, and indeed Nigeria must commercialize research, especially in the oil and gas sector if it must own its solutions.

Adeniyi told Realnews in Lagos that energy experts in Nigeria and Africa cannot completely decide what happens in the sector until they are able to develop indigenously owned solutions through research and development.

The Executive Director of TWF wondered how leaders in the industry can insist on continuing the production of fossils when they do not own the technologies used in the exploration of crude oil?

He explained that the developed nations will continue to control the narrative, especially with the energy transition agenda until Nigeria and Africa begin to “Own the Solutions” by investing in research.

“You change the narrative by investing in research you don’t wake up overnight and say we are chasing the white man and bringing a black. If you now do your own research, generate your own data and you now do comparison with this, is this a competitive equal? Does it give safety reliability? If yes, in terms of protecting national economy why should I patronize a non-African consumer products in preference to an African, because whether it is in South Africa, whether it is Kenya whether it is Ghana as long as the money remains and circulates in Africa it increases and it boosts the  GDP of Africa.

“If I had the power, I would commercialize research. Commercialize research.  Nigeria still does not see research as a profitable venture. So, when a big money bag has money, everybody wants to go into oil servicing. I want to find a production company.

“But because the Nigerian system is still very porous and there’s lack of consistency, people are not so comfortable putting money up. I think more than that, people are ignorant that they can actually invest money into developing solutions, e.g. research.”

Adeniyi also called on African leaders to create a healthy ecosystem that can encourage investors to see research as a commercial venture.

According to him, this will help in creating thousands of jobs across Africa.

“If you go to the industry right now, the top 10 consumables are not African, we are only sales agents you do not change the narrative by being an expert sales agent you are only an errand boy.

“Do you know the volume of consumables that we consume in Africa, do you know how many jobs can be created by just producing electrodes alone; You create thousands of jobs.”

He further explained that the terms, Energy Transition and Capacity “Building is being used to manipulate Africa and exploit then even more.

He noted that there has never really been anything like energy transition rather there have been an attempt to control the narrative rather there have been a sublime focus on one energy source over another depending on how it profits the western countries who make the decision at the detriment of African countries.

“I stand to be corrected if there are two words that have been overblown and taken out of perspective by Africans there are two others one capacity development one is capacity development, the world has been abused, bastardized, dastardized, killed, manipulated the second word is “energy transition”, we are transitioning from where to where, till  today there is some people using coal energy there is no such thing as energy transition we are going to go into a phase of energy mix till today even with the existence of fossil fuel some fascists are using coal so what you are saying now is that with time because of the desire for cleaner energy fossil fuel might only come down a little bit fossil fuel will never go out.

“You are only looking at fossil fuel but there are about 101 by-products that come from fossil fuel. In addition to the by-product there is also gas, which is also kind of green you understand so what is going to happen is that as time goes on just the same way coal was relegated to the background it was not eliminated.

“Fossil fuel might take a lower quantum, maybe instead of 90 per cent it might now take maybe 40 or 50 per cent, then maybe renewable energy will take some. So we are going to have a more balanced energy mix transition, not necessarily like the way they say energy transition now,” he added.