…As Consul General, Borner, advises state, varsity on energy transition
Enugu state government and Enugu state university of science and Technology have indicated interest to partner the German government in areas of sustainable energy, environment, education and business.
The Governor of Enugu State, represented by the Secretary to State Government, Chidiebere Onyia dropped the hint at a public lecture with the theme, ‘German-Nigerian Cooperation in the Global Energy Transition’ that took place at Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) Friday.
In the lecture delivered by Weert Borner, German Consul General, he advised the people of Enugu State to source for alternative means of energy.
Borner emphasised sustainable energy, leveraging the abundant wind, the sun, the green energy through green vegetation.
Speaking with BusinessDay on the take aways of the public lecture for the university comm unity in particular and Enugu State in general, Chairman of the planning committee, Okechukwu Oji said the basic thing was collaboration between Enugu State government and the German government.
According to him, the Consul General indicated interest to visit Enugu to tap into the resource base of the state, particularly in the area of Energy, Environment, Education, Business, among others.
The chairman said that the lecture opened a lot of virgin areas to the University community and that the institution has “some take aways in terms of collaboration, in terms of partnership, in terms of better Education, in terms of socio-cultural issues such as language, the cultures, harmonising the various interests that we have between the German government and Nigeria.”
Oji further said that the university was at the forefront in terms of partnership and collaboration.
“We welcome wholeheartedly and assured him that there will be areas of linkages in the areas of partnership, scholarship and learning; we hope the university will benefit from the various goodies they are bringing and they can equally benefit from the university, as our institution should be able to add value to what their interests are. So, these are basically the key take aways of what we did today (Friday) as it concerns the university.”
He also highlighted other areas which have to do with the private sector, saying that the Consul General “looked into the 9th Mile business community, he looked into the European business, how to harmonise them and see how he can collate them to be beneficial to all the parties involved, especially in terms of innovation that the government is bringing on board.
“He equally looked at the Smart School to see what advisory role he can play in that area. But we as a university, our project is to make sure that we take education basically to the grassroots and we have opened areas of interest and partnership.”
Chile Anibeze, director of Academic Planning, said that Borner’s lecture actually gave them some insight into areas of research in environmental matters.
“We were able to learn the alternative ways, talking about sustainable energy; how to precure it; these are what he exposed. We are going to design projects now, this is a university of Science and Technology, from there we look at how we can present projects to address those areas whereby we can begin to exploit the benefits of the alternative means of Energy. Of course, we know that on our own we depend on petrol and gas, but now he has given us what happens over there and then how the wind energy has created a lot of impact in driving their energy source. So, we can channel our resources and thinking towards that,” he said.
Emeka Nzeh, director of Research and Innovation of Enugu State University of Science and Technology, said: “As Director of research and innovation, a lot things are very novel here for us to learn which will help especially the academic staff of this university to delve into the new research areas as it concerns Energy transition. It will equally help us in research exchange programmes with our own university and the country of Germany. It is an eye-opener to us for him to have arrived this place, broaden our scope as it concerns innovative research via energy and environment which is the in-thing.”
