There is prospect of oil in Bida, Sokoto basins – Prof Obaje

the government (NNPC, DPR) and investors.

And in many cases, what is not commercial to you may be commercial to me depending on existing infrastructure (pipelines, storage facilities, flow stations, pump stations), cost of operations, product usability, market, etc.

Apart from hydrocarbon which other areas are you researching in?

On our other research projects, we are committed to finding more energy for Nigeria because without energy there is hardly going to be any appreciable development, especially industrialization. Most industries folded up in Nigeria because we have problem with power but we have large volume of energy sources in the country.

Apart from oil and gas we have large amounts of solar but we are into coal and biogas right now. We are working on a project to use coal to generate electricity. We are doing what we call clean-coal technology development at IBBU in which we identified the negative materials in the coal and we are working on how we can remove them.

We have made significant progress in the smokeless coal initiative so that domestic cooking can be done using coal and the attendant smoke with the health hazards will not be there. We are also working to see that these coals can be used to generate power. So that is another work we are doing. Using smokeless coals will also greatly mitigate deforestation.

How far have you gone with the initiative?

We have gone about 80 to 90 percent. The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) is supporting us with some good amount of funds. We have just submitted our findings to TETFUND. We are just waiting for the next stage where we can get funds to buy machines to turn these coals into pellets and to package them in a pilot production for the university and surrounding communities to start using smokeless coal fuel for domestic cooking and other minor energy requirements.

Ancient forests that died about 100 million years ago are deposited in sedimentary rocks as coals, today we need to preserve our forests; we can use these ancient forests to preserve our present forests. There is a big problem with deforestation. People are cutting down the trees; we have to reduce the amount of charcoal people are using. Deforestation has serious negative climate change impacts.

How soon are we expecting results?

Like I said, we have gone far, we are waiting for the last stage. If we hear from TETFUND today, I can assure you that in the next three or two months, we will have smokeless coal pellets all over the place for people to use.