Mrs. Olajumoke Ajayi, NAPE President
The Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationist (NAPE) is one of Nigeria’s oil and gas professional associations with experienced members in the industry.
NAPE had a Strategic Workshop involving stakeholders in the industry on its proposed Academy.
The Academy is to train young professionals in the petroleum industry to address looming gaps for its aged workforce.
The industry is presently challenged and young professionals may not be experienced to take over the industry in future.
NAPE President, Olajumoke Ajayi, granted interview to energy correspondents on the initiative of the Academy and reason for its creation.
Excerpts
You are passionate about the industry and its future with the young ones, when will this initiative come to fruition?
Secondly, how can fund be raised for sustainability of this project?
Thirdly, will this project be done for students who are already in school to ensure it fits in with their curriculum instead of waiting for fresh graduates?
I’ll start with the first question. You are asking that since I have only one term, what’s this vision that after my tenure, in case the next president is not interested.
Like I said in my speech, I set up this committee immediately I took over. If you were in the awards night when the handover was made in my acceptance speech, I mentioned two major things: NAPE Academy and Review of University Curriculum.
We set up this committee. I didn’t rush them; seven months ago and they delivered what we did today. Was I waiting to see that the Academy starts during my tenure? No, it is not tenured. It is not one individual’s vision. It’s for the industry and beyond any executive. It’s even beyond the Association itself. This committee intends working continuously. The18-man committee will continue working until academic takes up.
Even though it is called an Academy, there will be Board of Trustees (BOT), representative of the shareholders and partners. This is part of what we are doing now.
There will be governance and finance discussion group. There will also be structure group. We are taking in more ideas and put it into a communiqué afterwards which will help us to review the framework we already have so that we can have the actual roadmap.
I am saying this because it is not a tenure project; it is for the industry. It’s a whole Association project which is the essence of having a BOT.
I can assure you, there’s nobody that will kill this type of project because it’s in the interest of the industry. There’s continuity and is different from any pet project of anybody. This is for the future.
I also mentioned in my speech that NAPE celebrated 50 years of existence of the Association last year in 2025. We are starting preparation for the next few days. The first year in the next 50 years is now because this month will be 51. That’s the essence of having this. Those who were there and delivered the successes we recorded in the last 50 years, presently many of them are old. They have retired. We need fresh people to take us to another next 50 years.
There will be continuity. I don’t see any tenure coming to kill it. But in order to ensure continuity, which is a concern everybody has expressed, is the reason we have BOT that will key into the project and it won’t die.
On the issue of fund you have emphasised. Funding is a major thing and that’s why I said all the key people and industry players, service producing companies, service providers, regulators, NNPC, should all invest on a yearly basis to the Academy.
It is not a profit making venture. Students will not pay; it is the money stakeholders bring that will fund the Academy. This is why we are involved.
That is the reason why I said it will take us about one or two years before it starts.
After this Workshop, we will have one-on-one discussion with key stakeholders. Everybody is giving support, but we want to see what each of them will pledge.
Are we starting with 100 students at a time? It depends on how much we are able to raise as funds. Even if it’s 10 or 20 students, we will start from somewhere and I believe when the industry see the results, more people will key in.
It’s like you want to start exploration drilling. No bank will give you money, but by the time you drill and make discovery, and you want to do development without you going to any bank, they will be knocking at your door and I see that coming because many companies today do their own solo graduate training programs. It’s not easy for them. It’s not what they are called to do, but they have to do it and they only train people they need to sort out their own problem.
NAPE is having one structured Academy. Why people are agreeing with us today is because they know we are focusing on finding oil and gas.
In the last 50 years, the discoveries that were made in the industry were done by NAPE members. When it comes to passing knowledge, everybody knows that NAPE is subject matter expert. If we have an Academy to train people, everybody will buy into the idea. I see companies stopping their GMT programs when this one starts, all they need to do is to come to the Academy every year to say for instance, I need 10 geoscientists, 5 engineers on request and they will be given. They go for internship after test, if they find them suitable, they get the job. This will be cheaper for them because certain amount will be allotted on a yearly basis to the Academy and training will be properly done.
The finance is not easy, but it is achievable. A company decides that 1% or 0.5% of its budget every year will be allotted to the project. This is why we have the regulators here. If the regulators support the program, there will be no problem.
How will the Academy cope with years of experience that there won’t be a situation whereby students would be willing to work in the industry proper and will be asked for many years of experience in the field? How will the Association bridge this gap?
You asked questions on the curriculum. Why don’t we fix it from start with students rather than graduates?
When I started my tenure, two committees were set up. One is this: if I had focused on only curriculum those who had graduated before I came as president will suffer. That’s why the Academy will take care of people with one year post NYSC to five years.
Those who are already out, have the opportunity to go to the Academy while those who are still there need to have some practical experience embedded in the curriculum. This would have given them practical industry knowledge so that when they are out, they will be ready for the industry.
For example, six months IT opened my eyes to so many things. Even if it is little knowledge they give to them when they go for interview, it will not look as abstract. It will assist them to proceed into the Academy to have proper training.
How will they be employed? If people ask for experience, they go to the Academy; it’s going to take between 12 to 18 months. While they are in it, the industry practitioners train them, and they will be sent to the industry for internship.
During internship, they gather experience and the industry recruits them. They will be recruited as trainees or young professionals. Although the number of years of experience is limited, but they know that they are young professionals. They will start counting the grade level based on the number of students.
The key question is the passion to build this initiative. In terms of sustainability is there any legislative framework to support it?
Also, in addition, we have had three stakeholders converging for this project, the industry, Association and regulators. How are we sure that this project will be sustainable such that those who brought the idea, when they leave, it won’t die off like other laudable ones?
If you look at the country today, some ideas were started and died. But some are still alive running for many years. Part of what will go into the planning stage is that there will be a group looking at the framework.
Other group will be looking at policies which are the reasons we brought in the regulators. It is an idea that is welcome by all stakeholders. Everybody knows in this industry that we have a big challenge because we don’t have young ones that are employable. So, if an association comes up with such an idea. I don’t see anybody killing it.
The most important thing, in order to guide against such unpalatable experience happening, we do all that is necessary to protect it and make sure it runs. If we had gone ahead as an association to start on our own without carrying others along, it means we don’t know what we are doing.
This question comes to mind.
We did seven months sleepless nights to come up with this initiative, but we believe that our idea which is the reason for being here will be perfected.
We will perfect everything that needs to be perfected to ensure it doesn’t fails.
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