Surveyor General office, NACHRED sign pact for nationwide hydropower development

By Chris Ochayi

The Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation, OSGOF, has signed Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with National Centre for Hydropower, Research and Development Energy Commission of Nigeria, NACHRED, to foster nationwide hydropower development.

The MoU was signed by both parties after a United Nations Industrial Development Organization, UNIDO, event in Abuja.

The objectives of the MoU according to a statement was to enable the Federal Government of Nigeria through OSGOF, attain its desire of providing geo-spatial data and services to support and transform hydropower development in Nigeria in general and in particular, to a level of assuring national and state development and create socio–economic improvement.

The statement signed by David Henry, the OSGOF’s Information and Public Relations officer noted that OSGOF as a Federal Government agency is responsible for providing geospatial data and services, and formulating and executing policies in this regard, has decided to encourage partnerships within the public sector to foster hydropower development nationwide.

Also NACHRED, with its primary objective as a research institution is dedicated to advancing hydropower development in Nigeria and has the expertise to conduct extensive research leading to hydropower development, including data mining , data cleaning , processing and interpretation .

The Director of Geodesy at OSGOF, Surv. Duniya Magaji who represented Surveyor General of the Federation, Surv. Abduganiyu Adeyemi Adebomehin at signing of the MOU said “At this very important meeting of signing of MOU, the fact is that, it is something we have been looking forward to, most of the offices that have problems is due to lack of synergy and collaboration Therefore, I am sure with what we are trying to do today, we believe it is going to go well for both of us. We have gone through the document and we can all agree on it”.

On his part , the Director in charge of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing /Mapping Surv Azeez Afeez in OSGOF said “I commend UNIDO recognition and their programme to create small Hydropower Nationwide to complement the bigger ones such as Kanji, Shiroro etc especially in serving the community and to share power from the grid and OSGOF was invited for presentation, during the presentation, from the conceptualization of this idea, to design to implementation, including monitoring for feasibility of this project you need survey and mapping. “

He said “Everyone at the UNIDO event agreed that OSGOF is needed for the exercise, for research and development , most of our data is going to be free , we support most universities and research institutions with free data , if we have hydro here and there , it will serve two purposes; it generates more power to the farm and can be used for farming and other stuffs , the collaboration is going to help the country to move forward. “

The Deputy Director from NACHRED Dr. Toyin Olugbemi who signed the MOU on behalf of her organization said “When we work together we achieve better because no man is an island, this meeting was initiated as result of meeting at UNIDO with OSGOF , we knew for sure we needed to collaborate with OSGOF to be able to succeed in our mission. “

Engr Dr Ladokun Laniyi the Chief Research Officer at NACHRED said “ During the feasibility study , it was agreed that data was the issue, we believe that this collaboration will bridge that gap in terms of topographical data and so many other things that will assist us in doing the work through the aid of OSGOF.