Prof Hilary Inyang says he has the wherewithal to clean up the Niger Delta, halt erosion in the country and help drive Nigeria’s science and technological growth initiative.
Hilary Inyang, a distinguished Professor
of Environmental Engineering & Science, and incumbent
Vice-Chancellor, Botswana International University of Science and
Technology, BIUST, says a permanent solution to the environmental crisis
in the Niger Delta region is possible but that the sincerity and
political will to do it is lacking from the Nigerian government.
Mr. Inyang was one of the recent
recipients of the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award for his
contributions to the development of “contaminant containment emission
models and systems” for reducing environmental and human risks using
starch from cassava in dust control.
Currently, the Chairman of the Africa
Science Plans, a council of experts mandated to implement an agenda for
African development through science and technology, Mr. Inyang was one
of 10 environental scientists honoured by the U.S. government for their
technical contributions to science development in the country.
In this exclusive interview with PREMIUM
TIMES, Mr. Inyang, who has published and co-published more than 260
science research articles, said the permanent solution to the
environmental crisis in the Niger Delta region is possible with
sincerity of purpose and commitment by all.
EXCERPTS:
You seems to have done so much in a short time. How did you do that?
I would say my story has been a strange
combination of things. I was lucky with the opportunity to have gone to
the University of Calabar very early without really completing secondary
school as a Shell scholar, to study Geology.
On completion, I had another Federal
Government scholarship to travel to the United States. On arrival, I got
the U.S. government’s scholarship to further my studies. Before I even
finish my Ph.D two years later in 1988, I was given an Assistant
Professorship, which gave me a leg up at the University of Wisconsin.
Indeed, I tried to work very hard. But working hard was not good enough.
A lot of people work so hard, but don’t get that far, without some
luck. That is why I said I was very lucky to have gone to school early.
In a sense, I am a product of many people’s sufferings and sacrifices.
Your background in engineering,
environment and technology is very interesting, particularly with your
interest in the study of dust as a way to combat environmental threats
to human health. What was the special attraction going into this field?
Under-developed and developing countries
either lack infrastructure, or are trying to develop infrastructure.
So, there are a lot of environmental exposures associated with those
activities. People who either construct buildings or till the ground for
agricultural purposes generate a lot of dust and other contaminants.
Droughts also generate dust in parts of Northern Nigeria. In the
southern part, heavy rains can cause floods.
In a sense, contaminants have always
been generated in many countries. It’s just that in Nigeria these
contaminants are not always controlled as much as they are in the
technologically advanced countries. So, the magnitude of the problem is
magnified here because of the inadequacy of control measures.
The significance of control in a country
like Nigeria is that we have very high population, and in some places
very high population densities.
When one has environmental exposures,
one is likely to have very large population of people impacted upon, as
would be different from the circumstance of, say Burkina Faso or
Mauritania, with comparatively low populations. So, risk factors are
higher in Nigeria than in many other countries.
In my view, I was looking for things I
would do to help people in Africa, so that the impacts of what I do
would reach the common people. It was natural for me to attempt to deal
with the issues of the environment.
Talking about environmental exposures,
those through the air routes are the most ubiquitous, because everybody
breathes air, and contaminants travel very fast with air than any other
medium.
So, this is why I was interested in
studying dust, because it was a very severe problem in African
countries, especially Nigeria.
So, I started doing things that would
control dust in our environment, as least fugitive dusts; not those from
the deserts, which are very difficult to control and need very large
sums of money to build vegetation zones and other things. Nigeria is
thinking about that to stem desertification. But, I concentrated on
fugitive dusts, emitted from road ways that are not surfaced; farmlands,
open parking lots and open areas, like markets and so forth.
This is why I targeted the local crop,
cassava, to take out polymers using science and technology. Polymer is a
common available materials to address the problem.
How do you use cassava to fight the problem of dust in the environment?
Wherever there is dust, there is a lot
of evaporation of water from the ground, which makes the soil break into
tiny particles. Some of these particles are very light, and easily
carried by the wind. That is why it is that when it is windy, there is
so much dust in the wind. The action of automobile tyres also causes
dust to rise into the air and travel over very long distances.
What this means is that we had to look
for things that would not evaporate too quickly. If one spreads water on
the soil in the dry season, one sees that the soil gets dry very
quickly, because of the heat. That only happens because water is very
light. So, if one gets a liquid that would not easily evaporate, what
one wants is increase in retention time for that liquid to stay without
evaporating. We had to look for chemicals and materials that would not
dissolve in water to do so using some complex mathematical formulae.
I thought about my time in Africa as a
kid and the fact that I used to see the old women throw away the water
from the cassava they used in making Garri. They would grate the cassava
and put it in water, the water would turn milky in colour, which they
would throw it away. The water they throw away contains some starch,
which contains some polymers. I needed to study the chemistry of the
polymers, which are extracted and subjected to some high level
scientific tests in my laboratories in the U.S. But, the equipment are
not available in Nigeria.
At the end of tests, polymers are
generated and used to do some more tests. What we found out was that
with the polymers in certain concentration, the liquid does not readily
evaporate from soil, as does pure water.
Of course, the chemistry had to be found out, which is a complicated chemistry and physics movement of fluids in compacted soil.
Nigeria is one of the countries
known to be facing a lot of environmental issues, apart from the dust.
Don’t you think your expertise in these issues would have gone a long
way to help the country find solutions to them?
Well Nigeria may not actually miss me
much, because I am so sure that Nigeria is really ready to solve most
the problems you are talking about. Nigeria does not seem to need
somebody with my high level technical expertise. There are many others
Nigeria needs a lot more than I am needed, for example, technicians.
The best structure in the technical
hierarchy of any country is that which has pyramidal distribution of
expertise, which has a whole lot of technical expertise at the basal
level and higher levels of technologists and a few PhDs at the top.
When I say a few, I mean relative to the
others. Every country needs a lot of the middle level technical man
power to man many things. Yes, occasionally you need somebody of my
status and expertise. But one needs a lot more of the others. People of
my caliber would be in the area of coordination of these things. But,
for now nobody has asked me to do that.
I have helped out in a number of other areas, by often volunteering my services.
For instance, the Ministry of Niger
Delta could have taken a lot more help from me in solving the Niger
Delta problem. Don’t allow anyone deceive you that there are no
solutions. We have solutions for those issues. We have developed those
systems for others, but nobody in Nigeria is serious enough to engage us
at the level that is needed to address these problems.
The Niger Delta problem is not
intractable. Nigeria is not the only country that has crude oil. There
are massive environmental devastations in Siberia, and systems have been
done to control the oil spillages. We have the capacity to do the same
in Nigeria.
I am the one who helped the Federal
Government of Nigeria establish and name the National Oil Spill
Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, starting with my work with the
then Obasanjo administration in 1999. I developed the fundamental
documents that were later developed into an Act of the National
Assembly. I was the Chairman of a NOSDRA event three years ago on oil
spill in Abuja.
I wrote Nigeria’s oil spill management
manual, which we completed under the auspices of the United Nations
Development Programme, UNDP, about two years ago. If Obasanjo had
listened to my suggestion several years ago, by now the problem of the
Niger Delta could have been solved permanently.
Those things are still there. But, what I
mean by engagement is a determined effort to engage us to solve the
problem on a permanent basis without looking at some of us as
contractors, and making it seem as if we are begging to help them in
their effort to solve the problem.
What suggestion did you say you gave to Obasanjo about solving the Niger Delta problem that you said was ignored?
I was the person who initiated an effort
with Admiral John Stacy of the United Kingdom to try to take the
Nigerian National Oil Spill Control mechanism, the technical
requirements that would deal with the oil spill problem in the Niger
Delta. I engaged the Obasanjo administration on the proposal.
Unfortunately, Obasanjo kept it till he left office a few months after.
So, those things have not really
materialized. Since the present administration came in, I have made
several efforts to deal with NOSDRA. They even invited me to give a
lecture on how things should be done there, but really nothing goes
beyond that.
Similarly, the Ministry of Niger Delta
Affairs invited me to come and show the scheme. We have done all that,
but, again, nothing has gone beyond that. We have even compiled the
catalogue of all the oil spills impacted sites, about 500 of them in the
Niger Delta region; devised a means for screening some, and looking at
the ones that are the most dangerous, and actually developed the cost of
each one, the parameters, the concentrations that would be reduced at
each site as well as the work plan for each of them. What is stopping
the Federal Government from implementing them?
So, let nobody go to the media and say all these things as a politician, that solving the Niger Delta problem is impossible.
The system is there to deal with that
problem. The problem is that no one wants to have the political weight
to try to do something meaningful. When they do put it in the media, it
is an issue they make it open to all contractors. I am not a contractor.
If the Federal Government wants to solve the problem, it should look
for me and get me, just as Botswana has done, and United States did.
For years, I was the Chair of the
engineering committee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
science Board for which I got lots of recognition, national awards and
commendations from the Federal Government in the U.S.
So, one is satisfied that the U.S. has
recognized my expertise and engaged me to solve their problem. I am a
product of the patronage of the U.S. I have to be loyal to the U.S.,
even as I am also loyal to Nigeria my country, which nourished me,
especially at the very beginning.
So, I keep my gratitude in saying this.
But we could do more than I did to merit that National Merit award to
me. There are a lot more than we could do to improve the situation in
this country, if there was seriousness and sincerity of purpose and the
political will to do so.
Why would you say the National
Merit Award was conferred on you by the Federal Government if you say
not much has been done to recognize and acknowledge your expertise?
My citation was a reasonable summary of
what I achieved to deserve the recognition, which was taking leadership
in research in the U.S. and finding ways of applying that research to
Nigerian problems.
Without attempting to sound esoteric
(because I am afraid if I give you details now, I would be going too
deep into science) I have been a leader worldwide in my areas of
specialty in engineering science and environment, particularly in
devising mathematical calculations for how contaminants leave materials.
I have written a number of textbooks on
these. I was thematic editor of the UN Encyclopedia of Life Support
Systems in that area of science. Through some of the works I did, I
published and co-published more than 260 research articles distributed
all over the world, and in some sense controlled the instruments of
communications science worldwide by serving as Editor-in-Chief of the
editorial board of 29 referral science journals. Perhaps, that is what
the Federal Government saw and decided to confer on me the Nigerian
National Merit Award.
The award is important to me
particularly, because it is the first time, since my secondary school
and College days here, that I have been awarded in a ceremony attended
by my people. Many others were usually outside Nigeria where I am often
the only one there.
Despite the award, you seem to
still suggest that the Federal Government has not done enough to promote
science and technology in the country. What’s the way forward?
Science and technology is the deciding
factor in the difference between countries. How countries do well for
their citizens is determined by their level of their science and
technology development.
The average life expectancy in this part
of the world is 49 years to about 54 years maximum, while that of a
Japanese is about 80 years; U.S. 78 to 80 years. It is not that God does
not love Africans, who, by the way, go to church more than anyone else.
It is just that circumstances have made their life expectancy so low.
These circumstances have to do with
emotional and physical stress, diet, environmental exposures and genetic
pre-disposition of the people.
However, there are areas we can
intervene. Any country worth its salt has to deal with about five
important things that define it: regulations, policies, technical
guidance systems, market incentives for private sector to do well and
enforcement, without which there would be mayhem.
Nigeria’s regulation systems are as good
as those of the U.S. The policy system come from the regulations, which
are mere legalese. One cannot use regulations to do so much. One needs
to be a lawyer to interpret them. Nigeria has developed a lot of good
policies. If these are true, what is then the deciding factor? Technical
guidance systems.
These are what make the difference and
the determinants of the wealth, health and the strengths of countries.
This is why I am saying that if a country does not have the
technological engine to drive the economy; developing National
Development Plans, strategic vision this and vision that is all a farce.
These visions have to be strengthened
through several intervention mechanisms and processes, which have not
been developed and implemented in Nigeria.
I have been an advocate for some of them
for a long time. I am very pleased that at last the Federal Government
appears to be beginning to do this,
For example, Nigeria has now developed
TETFUND (Tertiary Trust Fund), which is a fund for university
researchers to develop proposals, get money to implement their ideas. It
is only in countries, where the government, the private sector and the
non-governmental organisations, NGOs, can device mechanisms to extract
the intellect of Nigerians to develop their society than those things
would possibly work.
The government has to now go ahead and
not limit that to Federally funded universities, because intellects can
also come from researchers from private universities or sector.
I used to co-Chair some of the panels of
the U.S. Small Business innovative research programmes. A lot of the
technological advancements of the U.S. come from the products and
deliverables from the small business innovative research programme.
Even the ones revered as scientific
giants in 1961, Albert Einstein, got some of the ideas he developed from
that programme as a mecahnic in his workshop. So, innovation cannot be
restricted to the preserve of Federal universities-based researchers.
Again, if one glorified these
run-by-night politicians, some of whom only trade in mayhem all across
the country, to the exclusion of those who really have the ideas to
change the country, that cannot make Nigeria a technologically
productive country.
Every university graduate today would
want to be a rap artiste, a politician, enlist in cult groups to be able
to run errands for politicians who want to steal votes during
elections. So, government has to show occasionally the utility of
science and technology to a country like Nigeria, so that things would
work well. We cannot just have a system where everyone wants to be a
quasi-politician. Who would produce for the country? If these Asian
countries called the Asian Tigres had that kind of system, they would
never have moved as fast as they are today, if the emphasis was on
politics of trouble and divisiveness, graft, unfairness and hate.
So, Nigeria has to rededicate itself to
honouring and providing more opportunities for intellectual growth. The
1960s was the era of African political independence. This needs to be
the era of African political renaissance. Without that, Nigeria would be
left behind.
I assumed the leadership of the Chair of
the implementation committee on African Science Plans, and I was
co-Chair of the African Science and Technology Agenda presented at the
Rio+20 event at the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I was selected by the UN to
go and make the presentation at its headquarters in New York.
So, I am committed to help change Africa
as a pan-African. So, if it does not work in Nigeria, I am ready to
migrate to another, as I have demonstrated in my movement to Botswana.
For me what I have always wanted was to
use science and technology to improve the lives of under-privileged
people worldwide. That is why I had to move from the lofty position as
the first African to hold the positions I held in the U.S. to do those
expeditions to what seems as strange places.
Pomp and pageantry are of little
significance to me. I did not go into science and technology to be rich.
I have been in that position in the U.S. to make all the money I would
have wanted. But, it did not take me long to decide to leave and go to
Botswana for five years, after which I cannot guarantee I would not find
myself in some rural places in China, Brazil or any other place around
the world.
But you were the VC of the
African University of Science and Technology, AUST, Abuja, which is the
equivalent of the Botswana International University of Science and
Technology, BIUST, where you moved to. What’s the difference?
At the risk of annoying anybody, I had
made up my mind that I had done what I wanted to do at the University of
North Carolina, which was my sixth university. Like I said, I had
started very early as a young assistant Professor at the University of
Wisconsin before going to the University of Massachusetts, struggled and
established a major centre that the State was very happy about. Then, I
went to the University of North Carolina to establish the global
institute, which became very famous, and got so many people, including
some of my former students, who are now Presidents of universities.
Deans all over America, and many of them in Africa, are my former
students. So, I had done what I intended to do in the University of
North Carolina. So, I wanted to leave, because I had no more things to
do that excited me. I am not driven by money. I must be excited by what I
am doing. I have no such interest. I could have been a billionaire as
member of so many important Boards in the United States. I was headed to
China to head their engineering institution, but Botswana people
convinced me to come to their country, because there was a national
initiative to use science and technology to advance their country under
their Economic Diversification Plan.
The Botswana Presidency and a former
President Mohai, who is the Chancellor of the Botswana International
University of Science and Technology, where I am today the
Vice-Chancellor, tried everything and finally I agreed that I would be
there for five years to help and build science and technology systems
there. My vision was to take that on across all of southern Africa where
there are very stable political atmosphere. Within this period, I can
use that as a base for changing Africa. I am determined to do that. I
have already started. The government is giving me a lot of support,
moneywise and morally. I am going to take as many as 200 people from
Nigeria. My team is coming to Nigeria this week to hold meetings with
the Petroleum Trust Development Fund, PTDF; Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and others, to try to help Nigeria.
Then coming to the question, why
Botswana and not Nigeria. The circumstances at AUST were not such that I
could have done what I am doing now at Botswana.
I don’t want to say more. I don’t think
AUST was prepared to take what I am doing now in Botswana. One has to
have some level of trust that the person would be allowed to do what he
knows how to do and not be subsumed in another system not consistent
with his vision and dream. I am not a robot. Even if you pay me
$2trillion, I will resign when that happens.
Are you saying that undue political interference in your mandate made you to leave AUST to Botswana?
I don’t want to talk about who did what,
because we were all Diasporans who returned home to help our country in
whatever small way we could.
The summary of what I have to say is that it was not possible for me to operate the way I know how to operate.
As the VC of AUST, I must be able to
structure the place I am heading; bring the personnel I think help do
what I want done, and perhaps drive the entire process. I have been in
higher education for a long time. I was born to be a researcher and
scientist. So, I cannot subsume that to any other circumstance that
would hold me back. I am in a hurry to change systems and places, and I
cannot be held back to fight matters that are not in line with my
dreams.
I have found an enabling circumstance in
Botswana. That is why I am there to do what I have to do for some
time.I am on a mission to change the developing world. It affects me
awhen I read about the fact that I cannot do in my country what others
are begging me to do in their country. This is why I spend some time
with people in the rural areas in Brazil, and what I have seen I could
not have stood aside and watch.
Talking about your plan to come
to Nigeria to take as many as 200 professionals abroad, would you not be
aiding and abetting brain drain in the country?
I am going to do it. It is not brain
drain. I usually do what I say I would do. I am taking them to train
them and send them back to Nigeria. Right now, I am recalling everybody
Botswana sent overseas for training. I was one of the highest paid VCs
in Africa when I was at the AUST. That did not stop me from resigning
and staying jobless for six months. I am driven not by money or
patronage, but my convictions.
What’s the education system in
Botswana like when compared with the situation in Nigeria where the
students have had to stay for more than five months at home as a result
of the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU?
That makes me very sad, because Nigeria
has not been able to get its acts together. And people like to blame the
Presidency. Its nothing to do with just the Presidency. The Presidency
did not tell some university professors to try to abuse their
authorities; he did not tell a professor to sell handouts and say if
students don’t buy, they don’t pass their exams. It is the corruption
that has come into the Nigerian society; the insincerity of purpose of
our leaders; lack of respect for professionalism, and all that, that
have mitigated against the growth of the country.
Though lack of leadership is just one
factor, but that is not restricted to any particular jurisdiction. It is
across the board. But, now I see that the government is trying to make
amends and get things going. For instance the creation of the Tertiary
Education Fund is a step in the right direction and a big accomplishment
of the current administration.
There are many things that have gone
wrong at many levels. What about the issue of delay in the issuance of
transcripts? What has the president got to do with that? Any
self-respecting VC should be able to issue transcripts of students who
studied in their institutions immediately. This is a big shame. If I
were the President, I will sack a VC who is not able to get transcripts
issued immediately.
Does it not matter that it could be as a result of the poor funding situation in the universities?
It has nothing to do with poor funding.
If that is so, why can’t they resign. Why can’t the VCs dispense with
the security guards that they have, or reduce the size of their big
lodgings, if it were poor funding?
How does the Nigerian National
Merit award to you make you feel, despite your reservations about the
way things are going in the system?
Let me correct that impression. I am not
saying that the government must recognize me. I have several of such
awards elsewhere all over the world. I am very very grateful for the
award. But, let me say that when I say I am dissatisfied about the state
of affairs in the country, I did not attribute that to government,
because Nigerians tend to think as if government is some external
entities. Government comes from the people, which in general society are
constantly being isolated, taken and put in government. Government is a
representation of the people. The thing has to do with integrity when
they are faced with resources they never had; the decision not to take
that money and pretend to be Popes, when they were no Popes before. And
now that they have been appointed into government, they have suddenly
become Popes. They want sirens blown for their every movement. They
don’t spend time to analyse the problems of the country and seek
effaceable solutions. Now they have become just political patrons, like
everybody else. That is the problem of the country.
So, I don’t have a problem not being
recognized. I have been recognized enough all over the world. Nigeria
just gave me essentially the medal of technology. In the U.S., I have
received all lot of awards, and internationally as well.
So, I have taken my fair share of awards.
My primary interest now is that with the
confidence that the government and the Governing Board of the medal
have in me, they haven’t engaged me enough to try to change the country.
That is the question now. It is not a question of recognition. It is
question of engagement in the things I have before you. The things I
have in the Niger Delta ministry, one would be shocked what I have that
would have addressed the oil contamination problem in the Niger Delta
region a long time ago. One would be surprised to see the thing sitting
in the Ministry of Environment that would have addressed the issue of
erosion if I have to do the way Botswana is asking me to do there, or
the way Africa is asking me to do as the Chairman of the Africa Science
Plans. These are not problems that cannot be solved. Some of them are
downright easy third world technical problems that pale in comparison to
those things in U.S. in terms of complexity.
What’s your blueprint for handling the environmental and technology issues in the country?
As I said earlier, I am a pan-African.
So, as I speak, I will drag some examples from elsewhere. At the level
of government, the way of evaluation should not be limited to just what
the government brings to the community. Government here does not mean
Federal Government alone, because there is a tendency to heap every
problem on the Federal Government as if the Local Government Chairman
who decides to escape with the people’s revenue allocation to share with
political patrons is not as culpable. They are even more culpable,
because they are closer to the people.The public should recognize that
these can be changed, and that change would not come from the centre
alone, but from the people. When someone shows up during elections with a
bag of salt or garri to vote for him, they simply say we do not want
these. Tell us what you would do for us. Let’s send our best person to
the office, and not someone who come in a big car, and looks and not act
the responsibilities of the office.
Please don’t worship leaders just like
that. There is nothing so big in being a leader. A leader should be the
servant of the people, and not the Pope or ruler of the people..
Again, the President should not accept
ministerial nominations from anybody. He should pick only the people he
thinks can help him realise his vision of change for the country.
Governors and political party chieftains should not be involved in the
selection of ministers and other public office holders. Ministerial
postings should be on the basis of competence and professionalism. The
people would be happy if someone comes to change their circumstance.
They would not care if the person comes from their place.
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