By Mahdi Waziri Isa
The Executive Secretary of the National Board for Technical Education, Professor Idris Muhammad Bugaje, has charged students and researchers of Ahmadu Bello University to direct engineering work toward solving immediate Nigerian problems.
He gave the charge on Monday – 8th September, at the opening of the ICESID 2026 Conference hosted by the Faculty of Engineering, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
Bugaje told lecturers and researchers to let their laboratories address local needs through projects such as low-carbon agricultural ash cement blends, precision solar irrigation pumps for northern farmers and waste gasification systems for municipal refuse.
He also urged them to develop engineering solutions to current insecurity challenges.
Speaking to students, he said engineering is not only a white-collar office profession but a field where theory meets application on construction sites, bio-processing pilot plants and fabrication workshops.
He said students are not just studying to earn degrees but are training to build the structural foundation of a sovereign nation.
Bugaje told postgraduate scholars that their papers should be judged not only by theoretical rigour but also by whether they can be built, deployed and maintained by a Nigerian technician.
He called on industry participants to engage technical institutions as a genuine talent pipeline and innovation partner, not as a corporate social responsibility gesture.
He urged government and academic leaders to match conference enthusiasm with funding, accreditation pathways and policy support required for innovation to survive.
Bugaje concluded that Nigeria’s future will be drawn on CAD screens, calculated through thermodynamics, forged in fabrication yards and verified by inspectors on the ground.
