By Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku
Umar Yahaya, 28, is an environment manager and toxicologist from Kano State. After he graduated from the Federal University in Dutse and served his fatherland in 2018, he began to think of a way to contribute his bit to the clean energy initiative.
So he invented a household cooking appliance that uses less energy. While seeking opportunities for funding and partnership that would assist him take his invention to the next level, Mr. Yahaya heard about the Environmental Rights Action (ERA) Youth Talent Hunt scheduled to take place on September 29, 2020 in Benin City.
According to him, he endured a lot to get to Benin City from Kano to participate in the ERA talent hunt.
“After the battery of our bus went flat, the tires of the bus also burst twice on the way. Not only that, there was traffic congestion – a lorry fell and blocked the road. Altogether, I spent nearly 26 hours on the road,” Mr. Yahaya said.
But Mr. Yahaya was not the only one finding his way to Benin City. Sunday Kolawole Sholanke, 29, from Ogun state also wanted an opportunity to showcase his app, developed to manage waste disposal.
Sholanke said that he was more interested in the non-traditional methods of waste disposal in Nigeria. “My app is one of the solutions to the deficit of infrastructure of waste management in Africa,” he said.
In an address of welcome to the more than 50 participants at the Precious Palm Hotel in Benin City, ERA executive director, Dry Godwin Uyi Ojo told participants that the talent hunt was an initiative to address the energy poverty in Nigeria by the promotion of innovative solar energy products.
The ERA director said that because youths are often catalysts of change, a talent hunt for them to understand the need for clean energy transition became expedient.
According to Dry Ojo, the talent hunt “addresses clean energy access for all in order to reduce the nation’s carbon footprints in line with the Paris Agreement in 2015.
It also helps to provide opportunities and logistics support for our youths to lead in the production of innovative cleaner technologies to drive the renewable energy sector.”
Dry Ojo used the occasion to decry tax burdens as national economic development policy thrust which have led to high transaction costs often passed on to consumers.
“Electricity tariffs have no value-added, tax burdens are ill-timed and are obstacles to renewable energy development. They spell untold hardship on citizens, and the increase in fuel and electricity tariffs has brought untold hardship to Nigerian workers,” he said.
