Indigenous engineers have solutions to Nigeria’s infrastructure problems — NSE president

The President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Tasiu Sa’ad Gidari-Wudil, has reiterated the need for the federal government to engage and effectively utilise the skills of members of NSE for infrastructural projects across the country.

He said this while addressing journalists in Abuja last Friday on the sidelines of the October 28 lecture of NSE.

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Gidari-Wudil noted that Nigerian engineers were not involved because the government preferred foreigners to do most of the infrastructure projects.

He explained that, “Everything about governance and politics is about infrastructural development. You cannot get infrastructure development by neglecting the very people who construct and design those things. So if we want this country to move forward infrastructurally, we just have to get the right people; the engineers and other professionals in the built environment have to be involved in decision-making.”

Deputy President of NSE, Engr Margaret Aina Oguntala, said there was the need to bridge the gap between academia and the industry.

She said, “What we need to do more is to continue to bridge the gap between the academia and the industry so that the products of the universities are better prepared to take up jobs and then to take on the world so that we can better develop the nation.”

She further said that as part of effort to stop the incessant collapse of buildings, NSE encouraged builders to use good materials “because there are a lot of materials in town, but there are those that are supposed to be used. They must be certified as the correct materials to be used.”