We have no choice than to invest in satellite technology

Director-General of National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Dr. Seidu Onailo Mohammed spoke with IT Edge on his plans for Nigeria’s space programmes in face of limited funding. Mohammed argued that government alone cannot carry the burden of growing the strategic space industry. Private sector players in the telecom industry should be made to commit 1% of their profit on developing the industry for the benefit of everyone. The interview held in Abuja.



A lot of people will want to know what your plans are for NARSDA since assumed office. What new things are you bringing to the space agency?

Ordinarily in space programs people with different disciplines are represented. Some of us  are trained for space technology applications and our concern every day is how we can  translate this satellite in orbit to the ordinary person in the street. A country like ours  with a very large population needs to constantly monitor development in cities and other  parts of the country, based on the dynamism of population shift. Part of my efforts is to continue to commit myself to the first African high resolution window that will afford us  several opportunities in different ways such as helping in the issues of national security.

We need to concentrate on our ability to monitor the economical zone of Nigeria which is the  Niger Delta. We must have a technology to detect when somebody illegally tampers or taps oil from the main lines creating an illegal refinery. This is why Nigeria needs to emphasize on the development of SAT-2.

What happened to SAT-1?

SAT-I is still functioning. SAT1 is a medium resolution while SAT2 is a high resolution  satellite. High resolution allows and enables you to see up to 2.5 meters resolution.  Nigeria needs to have detailed information about its cities and surroundings. We need  information about every house to improve our ability to generate revenue by the various  states. Through these images, certain details can be acquired to aid the functionality of the government.

In terms of capacity building how much of our engagement in space technology has impacted on Nigerian engineers and scientist?

Thank you for that question. Nigeria today has over a hundred trained satellite engineers  and scientists and more are still being trained in the UK, United States, Russia and China.

When you plan a programme such as this you must deliberately embark on training programmes.  In 1990, we evolved a 15 year development plan for space programme. We said when the space  agency starts we should have produced about 50 PhD holders with high level research works on  the industry to be able to make most things local and make use of our own people to drive  our main objectives in the space industry. We envisaged a spillover effect in the sense of the number of experts in the satellite and ancillary sectors.

We are still very far from that but efforts are being made to achieve that goal. At the  moment, we have about eleven PhDs produced already and about six scattered around various  institutions. The heart of space programme is the ability to design locally and be able to  produce satellites at home here in Nigeria. You will recall Iran manufactured and launched a  home made satellite a few months ago. Issues of space programmes are not merely scientific;  they are also strategic and political issues. The space industry is one of the major indices showing the power of a nation.

In five of ten years time, will this project have an impact on the average Nigerian farmer  who understands nothing about a satellite? And do we wait another twenty years before we feel the impact of development on the nation?

Firstly, people need to be educated more on the need and use of a satellite. For example,  investments today are not only in fertilizers, the ability of a nation to map results so as  to tell farmers what to do at certain times and how to do those things are equally critical.

The ability of government to know the  distances from various villages that are far from  water in which case you are able to pin-point the exact people in need of water supply is  crucial to development planning. Constantly we are monitoring the environment to see  problems associated with the environment such as locust invasion, through this technology  the hatching and invasion of locust is monitored by the appropriate government department  and the pest control department is advised on what to do. If you don’t invest in technology  in the 21st century you are inviting problems for your people because when you  can’t plan for agriculture and water, you don’t know the extent of population growth and so on. Any  nation that plays down the role of technology in development will become extinct in no time.  We have no choice than to invest in satellite technology because our population growth is  one of  the highest in the world. We have the biggest threat to real development in terms of exploding population and crimes are on the increase. The sustenance of this country must  depend on our ability to think and use resources, not the other way round. We must become  part of the space race in such a way that ours is not just to go to space but to exploit the  resources which we have so as to feed our people, provide information and monitor existing infrastructure we have in various places so as to sustain and improve on what we have.
 

What is the idea behind the AIT initiative?

The heart of space programme is in AIT. It explains why it is in the heart of our desire for  a home-grown space programme. The whole idea is geared to establish a design center that can  design space crafts up to 1000 kilogrammes. Ultimately, we are focused on being able to  design, manufacture and test satellite crafts here. Space technology is what most countries will not give you when you consider the issues concerning missiles because this is a  technology that allows a country do other things in terms of industrial and military  technologies. But the advantages of the satellite industry are tremendous and cannot be  ignored by a country like Nigeria. For instance, we need to constantly monitor threat both  foreign and domestic, and even natural disasters, For example a volcano erupted in Cameroun  killing a 1000 people, the land slopes toward Nigeria into the Benue basin with Nigerian communities living along that line which we need to constantly monitor. We are working with the Chinese on the satellite project.

As DG of NARSDA what scares you with reference to your visions for space technology and the reality of budgets constraints?

Let me refer to a quote from someone: “it will be an unforgivable crime for this generation  to put into record that we were not able to do certain things for our people owing to the  limitations of funds.” Like you all know, funding projects like this is a big problem, and  in the light of this that we are suggesting to government that people involved in the business and use of satellite facilities and technologies should all contribute to our development in terms of one percent of their income so that the totality of it is that at the end of the day we still have some money to develop this programme, launch satellites and grow as a people. The annual budget is not enough to accommodate our satellite aspirations.

Therefore, all we are saying is that stakeholders in the industry should be able to  contribute to the development of Nigeria, particularly this strategic industry because when a nation develops everybody develops.

“People involved in the business and use of satellite facilities and technologies should all contribute to our development in terms of one percent of their income”.

 

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