Ibrahim Garba, VC of ABU Zaria. |
Globally, there are three fundamental
functions of a university system in a nation building. The functions are
teaching, research and community service. These functions require enormous and
consistent use of human and materials sources, conducive-atmosphere and
continuous supply of energy to operate the system.
The quantum of these
requirements is proportional to the size of the university. Relatively, large
universities need large financial resources to meet these requirements and play
their expected roles. In Nigeria, with free-tuition fee for undergraduate
students in public universities, low-income generation, relatively small
available grants and poor funding; managing university to meet these
requirements becomes herculean.
Theconsequences are perennial and unending
university’s unions’ industrial actions as well as difficulty in maintaining
educational standard. Among these requirements, energy is thelife-wire of the
university system but it is highly unreliable in Nigerian situation. It is also
the most fund guzzlingof the university’s lean purse on monthly basis. This has
made management of public university very challenging.
The case of monthly payment of electricity
bill by Ahmadu Bello University Zaria can clearly show the enormity of fund use
to settle the bill of electricity. The current Vice Chancellor of the
university, Prof Ibrahim Garba atthe resumption of office in 2015 was welcomed
by the mounting challenge of paying sky-rocketed electricity bill of over 80
million Naira monthly. He was quoted lamenting on the university’s difficulty
to pay the bill “that independent power generation became imperative and
necessary to the university because ABU could not sustain the N86 million
monthly electricity bills. ABU seeks to address these issues by building a
bio-ethanol and biogas plant for the benefits of the university and the
surrounding communities”
The high cost of energy to operate large
university and continuous increase in prices of petroleum products, especially
kerosene, the socio-economic implications and their impact on the environment
make it imperative for the managers of Nigerian universities to search for
efficient alternatives. This is why at least two universities are making
fruitful progress in finding quantifiable biogas as alternative to public
electricity supply. These universities are Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria
and University of Nigeria (UN)Nsukka. How far have they gone? What are their
challenges and opportunities to potential investors?
Before then, it is important to adequately
introduce these two first generation universities, ABU Zaria, located in
capital of Zazzau emirate, Kaduna State and UN Nsukka, located in northern
fringe of Igbo Land, Enugu State. They were both conceived and nurtured by
pre-independence nationalists; Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and Dr.
NnamdiAzikiwe, the Owelle of Onitsha. Bello was the first and the last premier
of the northern region whileAzikiwewas Governor General of Nigeria from 1960 to
1963 and the first President of Nigeria from 1963 to 1966.
Ahmadu Bello University Zaria is one of the first generation
universities in Nigeria. It was established in 1962 by the Government of the
then Northern Region of Nigeria to impart knowledge and learning to men and
women of all races without distinction on the grounds of race, religious or
political beliefs. The founding fathers expected the University to aspire
to the highest international ideals of scholarship and to provide learning of a
standard required and expected of a university of the highest standing while
reflecting the needs, the traditions, and the social and intellectual heritage
of the society in which it is located. The University was taken over by the
Federal Government of Nigeria in 1975 and has since then assumed a national
mandate although its ties with the 19 states created out of the former Northern
Region remain very strong and ever glued.
In the
over fifty years of its existence, ABU has grown to become the largest, and the
most influential and diverse university in Nigeria. It consists of over 100 Academic
Departments, thirteen Faculties, and fourteen Research Institutes and
Specialized Centres. The University offers undergraduate and postgraduate
courses in diverse fields of Agriculture, Public and Business Administration,
Engineering, Environmental Design, Education, Biological and Physical Sciences,
Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, the Humanities, Law and Social Sciences.
The university has two campuses;Samaru and Kongo covering an estimated area of
7,000 hectares of land. Another unique
feature of the University, as opposed to other Institutions of its type in
Nigeria, is that it has both staff and students from all nooks and cranny of Nigeria,
neighboring countries and few other countries across the continents.
The
university alumni cut across the social classes from former Nigerian President,
Vice President, serving and former governors/Deputy governors of virtually all
the 36 governors plus Federal Capital Territory, Abuja down to thousands of
local government councilors and millions of ordinary graduates of different
specializations nationwide and across the globe.Today, ABU Zaria houses over
hundred thousand people comprising, undergraduates, postgraduates, staff and
their families living within and outside Zaria. In spite of her relatively
large size, ABU Zaria is amazingly expanding in academic programs, students and
staff population as well as in academic excellence.
The motivation for ABU Zaria to source for
alternative energy came from the university’s desire to drastically reduce the monthly
electricity bill being paid to PHCN. In addition, alternative energy will
reduce dependence on the fossil fuel as energy source.
In the last four years or so, ABU Zaria has
vigorously craved for alternative energy. The university has recorded four
different efforts with high potential to revolutionize energy production to meet
her needs and the needs of her surrounding communities.
The first project was the Nigeria-German
Energy Partnership for the construction of 10 Mega watts from solar energy source.
The project implementation commenced with a financial supportof Tertiary
Education Trust Fund. The second one was through a collaborative project with a
Hungarian firm;Agrar-Biothanol Company to generate power from farm produce and
human waste (faeces). The ABU- Agrar-Biothanol Company project targeted to
produce 2.66 million litres of ethanol per annum, 1,333 tons of liquid organic
fertilizer per annum and 1.2 Mega watts of electricity. The third equally
important effort was ABU-BIONAS project whose Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the university and BIONAS, a
Malaysian Firm, were signed ayear ago.
The fourth effort was the conversion of
typha grass into biogas, animal feeds and organic fertilizer. This effort is
through one of the university research center: National Agricultural Extension
and Research Liaison services (NAERLS). The typha grass conversion project is a
3 – year World Bank funded project under Transformation of Irrigation in
Nigeria (TRIMING). The typha project is aimed at transforming the ecological
devastation of irrigation schemes caused by typha grass to economic
opportunities.
Typha grass is one of the resource
materials with higher potentials for biogas generation. The plant is aquatic in
nature and highly prolific with occupation and blockage capability of the
inland waterways and irrigation channels. It can store a large amount of energy
by growing fast and producing large biomass, and this, in turn, polluted the
environment. This was a major problem in the Hadejia Valley irrigation project in
northern Nigeria. At this irrigation scheme,the plant threatens economic
activities, health and livelihood of the surrounding communities.
Typha growth
negatively affects the productivity of rice fields, blocks water channels impedes
the flow of rivers, hinders navigations and fishing, and increases flooding
risks. Despite its potential to be used as a renewable energy source for biogas
generation, limited effort has been made to do that. This could be attributed
to the low rate of cellulosic digestion, as well asability to slow specific
growth rates of anaerobic microorganisms involved in anaerobic conversion in
conventional bioreactors.
The typha grass project innovated means of enriching
microorganism with high cellulose activities through the use of rumen fluid
that enhancesTypha biomass degradation for biogas generation. At the laboratory
experimentation, the microorganisms were able to degrade the grass and
provided a source of clean energy for lighting, heating, and cooking. The
technology could serve as an innovative solution with high potentials to not
only provide affordable power for Nigerians in rural areas but also to greatly
improve the health and livelihood of families (To be Continued next week)
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