Abuja — The Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited on Wednesday announced a donation of N2 billion ($12 million) to six federal universities from each of the six geo-political zones of Nigeria for further development of engineering education in the country.
The company said it has committed $1 million each to the training of Nigerians who are involved in the building of six of its new LNG ships in Korea.
The financial grant was announced by the Managing Director of NLNG Limited, Babs Omotowa, at a briefing in Abuja. The briefing had in attendance Vice-Chancellors of the recipient universities: University of Ibadan (UI), University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), University of Maiduguri (Unimaid), University of Port Harcourt (Uniport), University of Ilorin (Unilorin) and Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria.
Omotowa stated that the NLNG will spend in each of the benefitting universities N340 million ($2 million) for construction of modern engineering laboratories and installation of cutting-edge engineering laboratory equipment in line with the objectives of its newly approved Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for universities tagged, NLNG University Support Programme (USP).
He explained that the six universities were selected based on their top positions within their geopolitical zones as well as by the rankings of the National Universities Commission (NUC) and other global bodies.
Speaking on the rationale behind the endowment, Omotowa noted that the USP which is expected to kick off immediately after all formal paper works have been concluded, said that the company decided to contribute in building Nigeria's in-country engineering capacity through the programme.
He added that the programme which will be managed in partnership with the universities, will run for an initial two years after which an evaluation of its impacts will be taken to determine its next phase and beneficiaries.
"No Nigerian university is ranked amongst the 500 best universities in the world today, neither is our ranking amongst African universities impressive. All the predictions about Nigeria's ascent as a developed country will only come true if and when we also take firm steps to fix our educational system. Well-meaning stakeholders need to urgently join hands to turnaround the poor quality of education in the country for the future of Nigeria to be better," Omotowa said.
Source : CHINEME OKAFOR, Thisday
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