Who wants to study petroleum engineering? Like I have noted here, if the world decides that “crude oil” is evidently evil, it would be banned like “tobacco” and anyone or school associated with it would be tarnished. Last month, I had a chat with a college dean; he told me that a new donor specifically requested that his money cannot be used in any project, research or training associated with fossil fuel production.
Imperial College London has drawn the first main blood: suspending its petroleum engineering program. Yes, if you do not train people on how to mine the oil, the sector will fade over time, they reason. This is a new age. It is like that Superbowl advert in America where that guy was playing piano singing “no cow no cow” to make a point that his company produces milk from trees, not cows!
Get ready for a redesigned future.
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As that redesign happens, Nigeria is expanding capacity to drill oil to the northeast of the nation: “The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, has revealed plans by the Federal Government to begin oil production in the northeast. Sylva stated this during a recent interview on Channels Television’s Newsnight in Abuja, which aired on Monday.”
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While in Nigeria we are still pouring more money, looking to see where crude oil could be drilled in large quantities from the north.
Neither data nor reality guides our decision-making, rather it’s either parochial or herd mentality in action.
How many courses in our local universities have any relevance in modern economic system? But because we want to keep our old professors in service, including those asking for extension of service year, we continue to fund programmes with zero positive impact in our national life. This is a country that is fantastically broke, yet prudence is never part of our national lexicon.
The way things are going in the world, nobody needs to persuade or convince you to change course or embrace new way of thinking and living; simply by cutting funding or refusing to buy whatever you sell, you will learn to acquire some sense by force.
These tokunbo brains we carry in this country, it’s becoming too damaging. We do not know how to pioneer or get ahead, always waiting to do follow-follow.
What a people, what a country!