The Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) on Monday began interviews for 2,102 applicants for the Overseas Scholarship Scheme (OSS) for its Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) scholarship programme.
The programme seeks to build high-level, specialised human capital for Nigeria’s oil, gas, and broader energy sector. It does this by sponsoring Nigerians to undertake advanced research in fields directly relevant to petroleum technology, engineering, geosciences, energy economics, and related disciplines.
By placing scholars in leading international universities, the programme allows the beneficiaries to acquire cutting-edge knowledge and bring it back to Nigeria, thereby ensuring a strategic pipeline for producing researchers, innovators, and industry leaders who can drive Nigeria’s energy sector forward.
Speaking at the headquarters of the PTDF in Abuja, the Deputy General Manager of Education and Training of the organisation, Dr. Bello Mustapha, said the postgraduate interview, which would be concluded on Friday this week, is commencing after that for Msc students ended last week.
“Last week, we did for the MSc in like four centres. Then here, we are commencing the second week for the PhD programmes now. (We have) 2,102 nationwide, but in Abuja it’s 912, spread across five days,” Mustapha explained.
He pointed out that the number of persons eventually admitted into the programme will be based on budgetary provisions, which will be a management decision that will be taken at the end of the day.
Mustapha stressed that if a candidate is picked and is unable to begin the programme for any reason, they will be replaced with the second best candidate from the affected state.
On which countries the beneficiaries will be sent to, Mustapha said: “We have the UK for the MSc, because we have domesticated our PhD now. We have our own university in CPSK in Kaduna, where we are doing split-site PhDs.
“So for PhD UK, we don’t send, we have an arrangement with three universities, that you spend one year in the UK, then you come and spend two years here. So for the UK, it’s just MSc that we send people to now, at the moment. Then we have Malaysia, we have Germany, and we have France.”
Also speaking, one of the panelists, Prof. Bashir Aliyu from Modibo Adama University, Yola, rated the quality of interviewees high, explaining that one of the features the panelists look out for is the suitability for patenting and how useful it will be to the country as a whole.
“So what we are doing at this level is to check out the quality of the presentations they are making for their PhD proposals. What we check (is) basically on the quality of their previous works, publications, and then the professional conduct and memberships.
“How promising are their proposals? The ones we have seen so far, we have the very, very good, and we have the good. Some are right on what is obtainable in the industry. We have some that maybe they have not done extensive literature review so far, but they are all very good,” he stated.
One of the applicants who was shortlisted for the interview, Tanko Fwadwabea, a chemical engineer, stated that his work is based on process simulation as it relates to blue hydrogen production specifically.
He stated that the whole idea is to see how Nigeria can transition from a high energy emission country to a low emission country, as most of the country’s natural gas is being exported in raw form.
“So my own dream is to see how Nigeria can add value to the natural gas we have through blue hydrogen production. And the idea is that when you’re producing hydrogen, for every one ton of hydrogen produced, 12 tons of CO2 is emitted. So this project will be able to capture this emission and make it viable for the country, help us to meet our climate target and also our energy transition plan,” he pointed out.
In his comments, a geoscientist, Jonathan Jonah, another interviewee, said the scholarship will aid in his research which involves a lot of financial commitment. “And with this scholarship, it will actually ease the burden. And of course, it will add value to my own dear country,” he emphasised.
A Federal Character Commission (FCC) official, John Imeji, who was also on ground to monitor the process explained that so far the principles of federal character had been complied with by the PTDF.
“Our effort here is to ensure that what they are doing reflects the character of the country and there will be no cry or hue from any angle at all and to ensure that there is transparency. (We are good) as long as there is transparency and then nobody is short-changed either gender-wise or tribe-wise or zone-wise and so on,” he stated.
Emmanuel Addeh
