Nigerian Society of Petroleum Engineers partners real estate developer on sustainability

By BARBARA KALU, Port Harcourt –

The Port Harcourt zone of the Nigerian Society of Petroleum Engineers (NSPE), has entered into partnership with the real estate investor known as the Mayor of Housing to push further on sustainability.

This was made known at the recently concluded annual general meeting (AGM) of the NSPE in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where the Mayor of Housing, My-ACE China, gave a speech as one of the sponsors.

The sustainability partnership is expected to make the two parties to work together in boosting activities on cleaner energy.
Explaining the partnership, Patrick Chimezie Ezenaji, an active member of the NSPE who emerged as Students Affairs Assistant Co-Chair for 2024/25 session, is known in the body of petroleum engineers as a sustainability and cleaner energy enthusiast.

On what the NSPE expected from the Mayor of Housing, Ezenaji said the sustainable development goal (SDG)-17 is all about partnership. “Interestingly, the Mayor of Housing is very much interested in generating clean energy in the area of housing and real estate.

“The partnership will harness young minds who are innovative thinkers to collaborate with the Mayor of Housing so that we can solve that housing problem in Africa and the world.”

The expert also said the partnership would attempt to solve energy crisis by trying to utilize renewable energy such as solar, wind, and hydro. The best place to try out the results could be in new housing estates. He said he was happy to work with the Mayor of Housing on cleaner energy and sustainability.

On his work with the students, Ezenaji said: “My passion for empowering students brought me to this position. In this era of energy crisis, I am empowered to enlighten the students more on Sustainable Development Goal-7 which is all about harnessing and generating clean energy to help eradicate climate change.”

Abiye Iyalla Pedro, the chairman that was sworn in on the night in charge of Rivers State, Bayelsa State, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, the south-east, and all the universities in those states, is said to be a construction manager in AGIP.

He said having worked under the shadow of Ngozi Okonkwo, the outgone chairman, his major challenge would be to meet members yearnings. “It is a big society that offers opportunity for career growth. At every time, we help our members to be abreast of the latest techs and opportunities available especially in the oil industry. They have to be technically and socially up to date.”

He said it’s the NSPE that scouts for training opportunities for members and ensures that the members were technically up to date.

He spoke glowingly about the Mayor of Housing, adding thus: “We want to say big kudos to the Mayor of Housing especially for the AGM. We believe that his tips and ideas about a place where people will live even after many years is novel. I think people should embrace it.”

On her own, Okonkwo, who just handed over to Ezejani as 103 session of the NSPE, said her takeaway the fact that many young people were eager to work. “If you tap into the pool, you will do wonders. I commend that to the incoming leaders should focus on the young people.”

Speaking at the session, the Mayor of Housing said he had mixed feelings attending the dinner because as a scientist, he felt engineers did not relax enough but that what he saw impressed him.

He said he was more impressed with cleaner energy as focus of the NSPE annual general meeting. “Talking about estates and clean and green energy, Shell’s Residential Area has emotional value for me. It is clean and green, 60 years after it was built.”

In that guise, he said, the proposed Alesa prototype estate must be like Shell estate with clean and green environment. He said there could be cleaner products in petroleum, and prayed that new discoveries in the energy sector should be discovered by Nigerian engineers to the world.

Speaking further to newsmen, China said there was a divide between the elites that have technical professional knowledge and the deliverables in the housing sector that deliver technically savvy smart buildings.

So, he added, because his firm was building a sustainable city that not only has to do with cleaner and greener energy, it has to do with state-of-the-art thinking and smart technology.

“We have to just come and marry the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) whose mantra is cleaner energy.”

Nigeria can lead cleaner energy drive:

The real estate success strategist said some people believe that the story of a sustainable estate with cleaner energy and greener environment was something for the Diaspora. “We have come to let them know that it has come home. And, they should watch out for what we are doing; the Alesa highland Sustainable City.

“I do not tell people to believe me when we are starting, I tell them to believe me when we are done. This is because we are going to do something that will not only make them want to partner with us but they would want to export us as one of those that are bringing the dream home.”

On his takeaways from what he saw at the NSPE Congress, China mentioned three, the first being that the NSPE has embraced cleaner energy even in the present instead of waiting for it to be a matter for the future.

He said a lot of people think Africa and Nigeria were backward in terms of cleaner energy. “Seeing that this body in Nigeria has embraced it is a big epiphany for me.”

Mentorship may restore hope in Nigeria’s young professionals:

The next, he said, was the way he said they carried their students’ body along. “It shows that there is a seamless synergy between the students and the parent body. This has given the students one thing that I say a lot of our young people lack, which is mentorship and inspiration. It helps them to be believe better, be motivated better, and be inspired better. 3. I was surprised with their emphasis on social life in their activities.”

The Mayor of Housing said everybody sees engineers as very serious and technical people that only cared about work, work, and more work, plus experiment, etc. “Now, you see robust social programmes that they are implementing. It is yielding results. That was a huge excitement for me.

“I actually thought that I would not be a very good match for the SPE when I am not building smart homes, but with their social angle, I think we can be friends where we can shout our slogans.”

Elaborating on mentorship in the professional bodies, the Mayor of Housing said the best way to lead is by example. “The best assurance of where you want to go is see someone that has gone there. The only shortcut to success is mentorship.

“Mentoring people from afar creates a chasm or a lacuna where the mentees feel they cannot do what the mentor is doing because they are not like the mentor. But mentoring people from close range makes them feel you and know that they are same humans like you. Sometimes, the mentees find they are faster, better, and smarter than you.”

So, he said, the young ones feel that if you could succeed, they can succeed. “Assurance of success is what the young people need. One of the most dishearteningly depressing and frustrating factors in Nigeria is that young people do not see a clear path, a clear future the country holds for them when they graduate, but professionally, the way this people have married their students’ body into their parent body, they may not see light in the country but they see light in this micro-society. That gives you the most important thing you need to achieve anything you want to achieve; that is certainty that it can be done. If our seniors have done it, we can do it better. That is the power of mentorship.”