The Challenge Ahead for Industrialization of Nigeria

Few days ago the news of a student in the  University of Ilorin who lost his life due to 300 million naira forest trade rented the air. It was a very sad incident loosing another youth aside numerous deaths of people by Covid 19. I was discussing this sad incident with a student colleague who happened to be a researcher in the department. He jokingly said Owonikoko go and learn Forest Trade instead of Fuzzy logic. Initially I thought he was right,  what have i gained by mastering the act of using fuzzy logic. For those of us  who doesn’t know what Fuzzy logic is all about,  Fuzzy logic is an artificial intelligent tool which  had been employed as part of the technology behind  washing machines, air conditioners, facial pattern recognitions and vacuum cleaners

Fuzzy logic can be employed to solve problems such as load forecasting, energy management, control system and prediction of a disease outbreak etc.  Why do I need fuzzy logic? The zeal to solve one major problem in Nigeria which is reliability of electrical power systems; this is what gave me the interest to a research topic. When I present this topic to my research supervisor, he was so amazed by the topic and he gave me a greenlight. He said Waheed you need to  study the mathematical background behind Fuzzy logic. This was a very big  task, it took me more than 3 months to understand this to some extent.  I had to see many videos and read a lot of journals before I could have an indebt knowledge about Fuzzy logic.

After the initial task, Fuzzy logic was used to carry out load forecasting on a transmission line of a station in Kwara State. The developed model was effective and it gives an accurate results. The advantage of this model was that if adequately explored by all transmission station in Nigeria, the generating station will know the amount of electrical power needed by the various transmission station for a day ahead load demand. Having said this Fuzzy logic was later employed for demand side energy management.  Based on the previous work, a journal that had been accepted but yet to be published by Pertanika journal of science and technology is in progress.

To my point, having gone through all this rigorous research ethics. There is no assurance that the Nigeria government will put this model into use. The government are not providing funds for researchers as expected and more so  lots  of good research had been carried out in the past by our various universities in the country. This researches always end at publication level, most of the achievements that had been made are not always put to use. This type of habit is among the bad act that is drawing our country backward.

The way forward, adequate fund should be provided by the government to promote research in our various higher institutions. The government should be responsible for bridging the gap between the academics and industries. They should ensure that the academic achievements made in our various institutions are put to use. The government should also encourage industries to look inward rather than importing expensive technologies  all the time. By so doing,  Nigeria citizens  will begin to have confidence in locally made products.