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Nigeria's ivory tower produces gold
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Accolades upon accolades poured in on Dr. E.A. Meshida, winner of the Nigerian prize for science, 2008 as he was honoured yesterday at a public presentation organized by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) and the Nigerian Academy of Science at the University of Lagos.
Clad in a black suit, spotting some grey hair, Dr. Meshida stood tall as he shared with the rest of Nigeria and the world, his ground breaking work on the invention of “lateralite”, a stabilizing flux for fine grained lateritic soils which could potentially be a solution to road pavement destabilization.
According to Dr. Meshida, laboratory and field tests have shown that when the flux is mixed at a ratio of 1:10 by volume with compacted clayey lateritic soils, the soils are no longer soluble in water but maintain their compacted strength. What this all means is that the adoption of the flux for the treatment of problematic sub-grade or base course in road construction should eliminate the development of pot-holes and wavy wearing course, as excess moisture would no longer be a major factor causing pavement destabilization, leading to longer lasting highways in Nigeria.
The road to Dr. Meshida’s award winning research started in 1975 as a research student in the department of Geology, University of Ife. He chose the problem of water dissolution of base course lateritic soils as his self designed research problem. This was based on his experience as an engineering geologist in 1972 while working for Messrs Nigeria soil Engineering Company at Ikeja, in Lagos. He had to intensify his knowledge of Geo-chemistry and mineralogy towards finding the solution. After several attempts, he achieved success in 2001, 26 years after he commenced his research. The rest is now history.
Dr. Meshida is a home-grown egg head. He had the major part of his primary education in Ado-Ekiti from where he went to Akure for secondary education. After school, he went to Christ School in Ado-Ekiti for his Higher School Certificate (HSC), before proceeding to the University of Ibadan. He graduated in 1967 with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography and went back shortly after for a Bachelor of Science in Geology, graduating in 1971. Meshida holds a PhD in geology (Geotechnics) which he obtained in 1985 from the Obafemi Awolowo University.
Several of Nigeria’s finest academicians joined Dr. Meshida on stage at the University of Lagos main auditorium as he was publicly presented as the winner of the 2008 NLNG Nigerian prize for science which comes with a cash award of $50,000 making it the most prestigious prize for science on the continent. Among them is Emeritus Professor David Okali, President of the Nigerian Academy of science who lamented on the dearth of entries for the awards. According to him, of the more than 40 entries, Meshida’s work stood tall and it was easy for the selection committee to pick him as the winner. He would have expected a scenario where two to three entries will jostle for the final selection and the committee will have a problem selecting a winner, which was not the case.
In his welcome address at the occasion, the deputy managing director of Nigeria LNG Limited, Engr. Faithful Abbi AbbiyeSuku described the Nigerian prize for science as the product of partnerships between the NLNG and the Nigerian Academy of Science. The NLNG, he said, embarked on the project as a firm conviction that greater recognition for science will provide leaders with answers to crucial national issues and bring about improvement in living standards. The award amongst many things is also expected to make the youth crave to be scientists, to put scientists in the list of the nation’s role models by elevating Nigerian scientists to ‘rock-star status’ having same face and name recognition as Nollywood stars.
Meshida’s work has turned into a beacon of light in Nigeria’s ivory towers. What with coping with obsolete and non-existence laboratories and equipments, lack of research grants and an uncooperative and unconcerned Government. There is at present little interaction between university based research results and their industry application in Nigeria. The parallelism of efforts in this area has to be arrested for good says Meshida.
Fortunately for Meshida and unfortunately for Nigeria, the invention of lateralite has caught the attention of a Chinese firm operating in Nigeria who has requested for the purchase of a manufacturing formula and the franchise to market the flux. Should Meshida accede to the request, the flux automatically becomes a foreign product like many other Nigerian inventions, a reason why many of Nigeria’s best brains leave the country in droves for greener pastures.
If the NLNG and the Nigerian Academy of Science dream of turning scientist into rock-star status will be achieved, winners of the Nigerian prize for Science must be taken round various higher institutions to deliver lectures and act as role-models to students so as to ensure that scientists have equal chance with the Nigerian music and video stars as role models for the Nigerian youth.







July 8, 2008 | 2:06 PM Comments  0 comments

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