Olugbenga
Okunlola, a professor of geology at the University of Ibadan, says most of the
geologists in the country are not practising what they studied in school.
Okunlola, a
board member of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI),
made the statement at the south-west zonal stakeholders’ workshop of the agency
in Abeokuta.
He went down
memory lane, tracing the origin of geology as a course of study in Nigeria.
“Between
1960 and 1976, we had about five universities that were producing graduates in
geology,” he said.
“Currently
we have about 54 universities in Nigeria that have produced geo-scientists.
Nigeria has less than 50,000 geo-scientists and that is underestimation. Where
are they? They are either riding Okada or in the banks or elsewhere.
“When you
don’t take a geologist to the field, you are killing him and the natural
resources.”
He said
there would have been no jobless mechanical engineers in the country if the
steel company at Ajaokuta had been working at full capacity.
Ajaokuta
Steel is unarguably the largest integrated steel complex in the sub-Saharan
Africa. It sits on a site of 24, 000 hectares located in Kogi state.
“When you
don’t take a geologist to the field, you are killing him and the natural
resources.”
“We don’t
need anybody to come and invest in Nigeria, if Ajaokuta starts working, there
will be no single jobless mechanical engineer in this country,” he said
“This
country has no business with poverty… lack of clear-cut optimisation models;
and abandonment of the extractive sector result to poverty.”
He said the
major challenges facing the extractive industry are low funding, misplacement
and underutilisation of capacity.
In October,
the professor of geology said gold deposit in Osun state is worth $5bn.
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