Nigeria’ll Lead Africa’s Renewable Energy Revolution- Tinubu
President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday said Nigeria had assumed the position of pacesetter in renewable energy capacity development across the continent.
Tinubu declared this when he commissioned Africa’s first renewable energy college, the Barefoot Renewable Energy College, alongside the Green Hydrogen Research and Demonstration Pilot Plant at the Confluence University of Science and Technology, Osara, Kogi State.
Represented at the commissioning by Vice President Kashim Shettima, the President said the college addresses one of Nigeria’s most persistent structural challenges, converting the country’s abundant natural endowments in sunlight, wind, biomass and water into megawatts, and megawatts into jobs.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Communications in the Office of the Vice President, Stanley Nkwocha, revealed details of the engagement in a statement he signed Tuesday titled ‘President Tinubu Commissions Africa’s First Renewable Energy College in Kogi.’
“This is the first institution of its kind on the African continent, modelled on the celebrated vocational colleges of India that turned unlettered grandmothers into solar engineers. If that method could light the villages of Rajasthan, it can light the settlements of Kogi, Ondo and Cross River. Nigeria assumes, from today, the position of pacesetter in renewable energy capacity development across Africa,” the President said.
Shettima, conveying the President’s satisfaction with the project, said Tinubu had always maintained that a government is measured by the industries it plants and the households those industries feed. The President reflected on the speed of execution, contrasting it with Nigeria’s historic pattern of unfinished public projects.
He said, “As a nation, we have become used to foundation stones that outlast the men who laid them. Two years ago, we stood on this ground for the groundbreaking of this institution, with red earth underfoot and the ambition of a few determined Nigerians for company. Today, we stand before a world-class edifice, completed to international standards.”
Tinubu described the college as a deliberate response to Africa’s real bottleneck in the energy transition, not a shortage of ambition, but a shortage of trained hands. “Our continent has never suffered a deficit of intention. We have suffered the scarcity of hands trained to execute them,” he said, noting that the college would produce technicians, installers, operators and maintenance professionals with practical competence in renewable energy technologies.
He said graduates would earn internationally recognised certificates of proficiency that would qualify them for employment or entrepreneurship anywhere in the world. “A certificate issued in Osara must one day command respect in Nairobi and in Frankfurt,” he added, calling on development partners, the private sector, international organisations and research institutions to collaborate with the college, and assuring that Nigeria was prepared to host and lead such partnerships.
The President commended the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Dr. Kingsley Udeh and the Director-General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, Dr. Mustapha Abdullahi, for carrying the project from the drawing board to commissioning, and thanked Kogi State Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo and the state government for providing the enabling environment for the project.
Ododo, in his remarks, said the college’s inauguration was clear evidence that Nigeria was on the path to sustainable development through investment in human capital, and that it would strengthen the country’s energy sector while attracting investment and creating opportunities for communities.
He commended the Federal Government for tackling the nation’s power challenges through strategic investment in the knowledge economy.
The Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Udeh, described the project as a major investment in human capital development and job creation, reflecting the Federal Government’s commitment to building a knowledge-driven economy.
He said Nigeria’s ambition of becoming a one-trillion-dollar economy depended on developing a skilled workforce in strategic sectors such as renewable energy, and urged the pioneer trainees to uphold high technical and ethical standards as ambassadors of the institution.
The Director-General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, Abdullahi, described the college as the first of its kind in Nigeria, equipped with smart classrooms, battery energy laboratories, a mini-grid simulation centre, energy efficiency laboratories and other modern training facilities.
He said the institution would produce highly skilled professionals in renewable energy research and development in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda.
The Ohinoyi of Ebiraland, Dr Ahmed Anaje, said the project would provide young people with valuable technical skills to contribute meaningfully to national development, and thanked the Federal Government for locating the institution in Kogi State.
