The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio has called for the deepening of technical proficiency of young Nigeria engineers to make them employers of labour in the country.
Akpabio, who spoke on Thursday at the 2022 Annual Public Lecture organised by the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Bwari Branch, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, said this can be achieved through a technology transfer initiative.
“I look forward to when we will have wholly owned Nigerian construction firms in the likes of Julius Berger, CCECC, Setraco, Mother Cat among others in Nigeria.
“There is a need to expose them to frequent training and re-trainings to make them compete favourably with their counterparts all over the world,” he noted.
The organiser of the event, Dr Halimat Adediran, who is the Chairman NSE, Bwari Branch, said harped on energy transition.
She said: “It will interest you all to know that Nigeria has more gas deposits than crude oil.
“We have the largest on this continent with approximately 206.53TCF of proven gas reserves worth over 803.4 trillion dollars as at 1st of January, 2021 and we are in the top 10 globally.
“The total domestic gas demand requirement (DGDR) in Nigeria stands at 4.482 billion Standard Cubic per day.”
She said Nigeria must stop relying on crude oil for foreign exchange earnings and improve on gas among others.
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