The 60th Inaugural Lecturer of the University, Professor Mufutau Waheed has identified inadequate electric and energy production and lack of technology for self-reliance of the country as the bane of her economic development.
Professor Waheed disclosed this while delivering the lecture titled, “Man, Energy and Environment: The Exigent Remediation” at the University Ceremonial Building.
According to him, it was high time the country decentralized energy generation in order to allow States, cities and even individuals to produce electric energy that can be fed into the national grid through the concept of distributed generation.
The Professor of Thermo-Fluids Engineering said appropriate energy mix system should be adopted for different locations based on the comparative advantages of the available primary energy, adding that this will facilitate the building of the country’s energy industry with more focus on renewable energy for a sustainable environment.
He disclosed that as an emerging economy, Nigeria has great potentials to harness and meet the challenges of the global economy and be like other developed countries such as China, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Argentina, among others.
The Inaugural Lecturer recommended that the country should utilise its large and growing human resources that can be translated into market or consumer of goods and services, as well as its abundance of natural resources which can also be harnessed into production and other productive uses.
The former Deputy Vice-Chancellor, (Academic) called on Government to stimulate local production of equipment and machines through appropriate policy, develop the country’s indigenous technology and discourage importation of some items, which are causing serious unemployment crisis.
He added that there is the dire need for materials, tools and instrumentation industries without which the country cannot produce some classes of machinery, devices or technologies, stressing the need for government to support and assist investors in this area.
Advocating for better linkages and support, the Inaugural Lecturer said, “Government has to give more support to research institutions and universities to pursue their research and developmental drive”. Pointing out that “No nation will truly develop without the injection of adequate funds for research”.
Professor Waheed equally canvassed for the establishment of a National Centre for Applied Mechanics and Computational Fluid Dynamics to support research and development activities in exploration and prospecting of natural resources, computational works in fluid dynamics, energy studies, solid mechanics, structural work, development of software for petrochemical and oil exploration.
He suggested that the interest of young people in Vocational Technical Education should be stimulated through robust reward system and incentives to retain them in the industries.
In his Remarks at the occasion, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Kolawole Salako described Professor Waheed as an outstanding scholar, an excellent team player, a born leader and a renowned researcher who has contributed to more than 100 Journal articles, 42 Conference Proceedings and 15 internal reports to various National and International Journals, Conferences and Workshops.
