The success of every viable institution like National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), is often time traced to strategic leadership approach and consistent capacity building aimed at equipping personnel for optimal output.
Though, space science and technology is seen as a multipurpose component of nation building and a catalyst for economy diversification, taking into cognizance the contributions of NASRDA to the Nigeria’s economical development as well as its salient roles in advancing the country’s security system.
According to Wikipedia, space technology is that which is developed by space science or the aerospace industry for use in spaceflight, satellites, or space exploration. This however, includes spacecraft, satellites, space stations, and support infrastructure, equipment, and procedures.
However, if Nigeria must optimally participate in the evolution of new space technology and satellite systems and enjoy its attended benefits, it is pertinent to train space science professionals through continuing education so as to perform specialized functions more effectively, efficiently and sustainably.
There is no gainsaying the fact that capacity building through breeding of proficient but indigenous professionals remains the viable means of domesticating exploration and exploitation of the country’s space and celestial endowments.
Besides other benefits of capacity building amongst experts in space science, having trained hands among the locals will make Nigeria an exporter of derivable products of space technology rather than being a mere importer and consumer of same.
Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Christopher Ogbonnaya Onu, who Highlighted the importance of space technology during the 16th annual space dialogue organized by NASRDA recently, said that the country was in dare need of space progrommes for national development.
Dr Onu explained that, “Space technology can be used in land preparation, management, irrigation and pest monitoring and control. It is also very important in the area of solid minerals identification, e-learning and e-health,” the minister maintained.
He added that, space technology can be used for monitoring deforestation, desert encroachment, as well as monitoring illegal fishing in international waters among others.
But as good as all the importance of space technology outlined above may be, it will rather be a mere daydream without specialized training and retraining for the experts in the field, hence, the imperative of capacity building.
While NASRDA may still be striving to attain its desired altitude of success, one thing which the agency can be proud of, is its dazzling commitment to the training and retraining of its members staff.
The present management of NASRDA under the able leadership of Prof Seidu Onailo Mohammed saw through the Eagle Eyes the imperative of having a well cooked, a thoroughly baked and a proficiently trained personnel in various fields of space science and technology especially that the core mandate of the agency would not have been achieved with crude and untrained hands.
To NASRDA Boss, human capital development serves as the fulcrum to the advancement of the space science and technology in the country in lieu of its contributions to the growth of the agency and its enormous contributions to nation building.
NASRDA under the watch of Prof Seidu, has launched three different satellites , Nigeria Sat-1, Nigeria Sat-2 as well as Nigeria Sat-x and is one government agency that believes in redefining the activities of government agency through effective leadership by training people to believe in their innate abilities and utilizing same in pursuit of nation building, an exploit that should be emulated by other governmental agencies and parastatals.
While interacting with staff of the agency sometimes in 2013, almost a year after the agency launched two satellites and captured over one thousand, four hundred images for national planning, NASRDA’s Boss, Prof Seidu, stressed that the agency would give attention to capacity building to meet the desired manpower needed to drive space technology.
“The best way to proffer solution to the problems on the land is through the space. We need to train our men and women to acquire requisite skills required to put the country in the world map of space revolutionaries”.
Until his appointment as the Director General of the country’s space agency, Prof Seidu, an erudite professor of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System, only met seven staff with PhD qualifications but his visionary leadership drive and his quest to have indigenous professionals manning the various departments and units within the agency has added several other personnel with higher degrees.
As part of the agency’s apparent commitment to capacity building, the number of PhD holders has presently grown to 71 staff while over 54 others who are presently on their doctoral degree programmes across the various universities in the Globe will round up their programmes by the summer of 2017 thereby totaling the number of Doctoral Degree holders within the agency to over 120 personnel.
This however, is different from over 200 hundred staff with M.sc degrees in various fields within space science among other 500 professionals who studying at post graduate level and also undertaking research across various nations.
However, following the principle of ‘Cause and Effect’, NASRDA’s efforts in investing in the training and retraining of its staff paid off through the prodigious brilliance displayed by Nigerian engineers in the design, development and launching of the country’s debut satellite, a feat that would have been undertaken by foreign hands , if we had no indigenous trained experts.
Under the superintendence of Prof Seidu, NASRDA successfully built, developed, and launched an indigenously processed satellite into the orbit, the first of its kind in the history of Nigeria.
Designed and built to flight standard by Nigerian engineers using the facilities of Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) in Guildford, United Kingdom, the satellite, code named as Nigeria-Sat X was successfully launched and less than seven days of its voyage within the orbit, the satellite returned back pictures.
The spacecraft, launched sometimes in August 2012, gives the African nation a powerful new capability to map its own lands and other parts of the globe.
The Nigeria-Sat X satellite as we gathered, has contributed in no small measure to national development and the country’s economical revival especially in revenue generation and provision of keen assistance to security agencies.
The Nigeria-Sat X, a satellite equipped with a multi-spectral imager for general mapping, agricultural monitoring and disaster relief work, has contributed enormously in the agriculture sector aimed at guaranteeing food security through early warning to farmers besides its contributions in Disaster Monitoring Constellation.
More importantly however, apart from training the agency’s workers, NASRDA does also extend its hands of fellowship in the area of capacity building to training external individuals whose professions require satellite driven assistance.
“The military demanded our assistance and we gave them. They came here and we trained them and we followed them too because they invited us. We have had workshops and conferences,” Prof Seidu said this in a speech at the Center for Satellite Technology Development (CSTD) conference held recently.
Meanwhile, the agency is presently clamoring for the speedy completion of the Assembly, Integration and Testing Centre (AITC) in a bit to maximally utilize its human resource potentials and advance the operation of the agency.
According to the NASRDA’s Director of Media, Dr. Felix Ale, the AITC is a Hi Tech laboratory where satellites can be designed, and build to a flight standard for launch.
Dr. Felix said, the space based laboratory whose construction was ongoing, will provide impetus for radical satellite driven technological development in Nigeria and also in the African Continent when completed.
“With AITC on ground, there will be radical development in the space technology, not only in Nigeria but also in the entire African continent.” He said.
In view of the numerous benefits inherit in space inclined technology, it is therefore adducible to maintain that, investing in human capital development through constant and consistent capacity building which NASRDA under Prof Seidu is committed to, will give room to trans-generational impacts in space science and technology in the country.
