Nigeria will have its own nuclear power plant in the next three years, the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC) said here Wednesday, adding, however, that the plant would be only for the generation of electricity.
Director General of NAEC, Dr. Erepamo Osaisai, said during an ‘intensive train ing programme’ for 49 NAEC staff in nuclear science and engineering that the target date of 2013-2014 was feasible as ‘the right caliber of competent and qualified Nigerians would have been recruited and trained to participate fully in the implementation of the nuclear power programme in the country.’
The NAEC, however, stressed that the building of nuclear power plants in the country would follow processes of safety laid down by international regulatory bodies.
It therefore maintained that work on the first plant would commence only when the requisite framework for growing adequate manpower needed to run the plants in a sustainable way had been properly put in place.
Dr. Osaisai noted that Nigeria had a lot to learn from ‘previous experiences when large industrial facilities were conceived and built without the requisite man power to man and operate them.’
This, he went on, must not be the case in the implementation of the nuclear power programme in the country.
Noting that NAEC was committing so much efforts and resources to recruit and train competent Nigerian professionals in the sector, Dr. Osaisai stated that ‘hope fully, from the next academic year, four of the nation’s universities which host the nuclear energy research centres would start offering master’s degree programme in nuclear science and engineering.
He said that a properly-equipped and well-fitted researchers’ hostel and confe rence centre would soon be unveiled at the Nuclear Technology Centre (NTC), Sheda, Abuja, to facilitate the training of nuclear scientists and engineers in the country.
In the next 10 years, he said, participants in the training programme would have grown to become matured professionals in the sector.