24th Engineering Assembly Opening Ceremony Speech

SPEECH BY THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF OSUN, OGBENI RAUF AREGBESOLA, AS THE CHAIRMAN OF OPENING CEREMONY OF THE 24TH ENGINEERING ASSEMBLY OF THE COUNCIL FOR THE REGISTRATION OF ENGINEERING IN NIGERIA (COREN), HELD AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTRE, ABUJA ON AUGUST 11, 2015.

Protocols,

NIGERIAN ENGINEERING FOR NIGERIANS

I must sincerely thank the Council for the Registration of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) for the kind invitation to be at the 24th Engineering Assembly and to chair the opening ceremony.

Engineering is the oldest profession if we consider that the very act of creation by God was supreme engineering. From the structure of the atom, to the complexity of the human body and the perfect order of the galactic bodies, it is engineering at its sublime best. Indeed, engineering has drawn its greatest inspiration from nature and the best of engineering still mimics nature. The best helicopter does not even approach one-tenth of the elegance and efficiency of the dragonfly.

It is therefore a significant event when engineers come together to advance the cause of their profession and proffer solutions to national problems. The theme of this year’s Assembly, ‘Overcoming the Challenges of Nigeria’s Monolithic Economy: The Role of the Engineering Profession’ is not just apt, it has become a national imperative.

Engineering is at the root of development and so no nation can be more developed than its engineering capabilities. Nothing reflects more poignantly the level of engineering of a people more than their built environment – civil engineering! These are the houses, office complexes, factories, skyscrapers, roads, bridges, landscape, bunkers and so on. We can then say that it is engineers that have built this country and they are the ones who have failed to engineer its development.

The theme of this Assembly is coming from the background of crude oil extraction and its export being the pillar of our nation’s economy. Since oil is vulnerable to the vagaries of international supply and demand and the consequent price fluctuation, our economy too is vulnerable to price fluctuation. When price is high, we are fine, but when price is low, we are in trouble. A few years back, oil went past $140 per barrel and we had to create excess crude account to keep the excess we could not handle at the time. But some smart Alecs know how to handle it better than the rest of us. However, at least 17 states and the Federal Government since then have been in a financial strait since oil price crashed to $48 and still going down.

The interesting thing about our monoculture economy is that while we sell crude oil abroad, we import refined petroleum. Basically then, we produce what we don’t consume and consume what we don’t produce. This is a vicious cycle in which we get the least value from a resource on which we have a comparative advantage of nearness to source and available market for its processed goods. It is comforting however that our refineries are up and running now and we will reduce our dependency on imported fuel.

Before we even proceed to how engineering can take us from a monoculture economy to a multi-culture one, it is apposite to begin from how much of our engineering has impacted even the oil industry. Besides that we have universities and tertiary institutions that churn out graduates in geology, petroleum engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering and other core professionals relevant to the oil industry, what level of our engineering is deployed to oil exploration, extraction, processing and transportation? I am not talking here about the number of welders employed by the oil companies.

The answer to this, of course, will be found in the number of refineries producing refined petroleum for our local consumption (and possible export) to whether indigenous companies have dominated the oil business in Nigeria. Therefore, there is a big challenge for our engineers to conquer the oil industry first before talking of a multi-culture economy.

According to a report earlier this year, about $10 billion will be added to the Nigerian economy in the oil and gas sector within one year and thousands of jobs will be created, if we can meet up with the local content act. But the question still remains: do we have the technical and man power capability for this?

There are other possibilities still in the extractive industry, especially solid minerals. It has been said that Nigeria has the largest bitumen deposit in the world, in the Ondo State axis. However, we still rely on bitumen from Trinidad for road construction and other uses. The gold deposit in Osun is on an industrial scale and compares to others found in South Africa and United States, yet, it has been lying fallow and we have been running from pillars to post looking for those with the right engineering to come and exploit it for us.

But there are other areas of the economy still where engineering could have made much impact. The area that should command primacy is agriculture. There is no denying that for a very long time post-independence, we have relied on imported food. A visit to any of our markets will reveal that apart from yam, corn, beans, vegetables and palm oil, most other food items, especially rice, wheat and vegetable oil, are imported. Last year, the government admitted that its annual food import bill had dropped from $7 billion it was spending in 2009 to $4.35 billion. This is still a humongous amount.

Yet, agriculture, apart from providing food security, is the foundation for industrialisation since it provides the raw materials for industries. Agriculture is still an area where we rely largely on crude implements and farming practices. The productivity we can bring to farming is still about one tenth of the potentials if we deploy the right technology in implements, farming methods, food processing and farming inputs.

Civil engineering is one other area where we can develop the economy. It is regrettable that apart from sand, building plans and cement, virtually other materials used in the building industry are imported. I am aware that a few indigenous companies produce some materials for the building industry, but the share volume of other materials, even measuring tapes, doors and locks imported from Euro-Asia is simply alarming. This is an area where we could have added significantly to the economy and create thousands of jobs if we can at least produce 50 per cent of the materials being imported currently.

Information and communications technology (ICT) is the fastest growing industry and another area to develop our economy with engineering. Our telephony is driven largely by Euro-American and Japanese engineering.

The Chinese and Koreans too are coming up. Again, if we can produce half of the computers and mobile telephones consumed in this country, the impact of this on the economy is better imagined.

Medicine is an area where technology could have aided our economy. According to the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), not less than $500 million is spent by Nigerians annually on foreign medical trips. We see Nigerian technology in our hospitals in crudely made drip stands, beds and gurneys, but we are still far from the engineering of critical lifesaving equipment, health improving devices and medical procedures. The design and manufacture of these gadgets would have created jobs and contributed something significant to the economy.

Not the least is in the area of security. President Muhammadu Buhari last week charged the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) to start manufacturing arms and ammunition. This should be strange coming from the president since we know that DICON has been established since 1964. Nevertheless, this 51-year old institution has been famous for its Union-DICON salt, rather than guns and military hardware. It should be worrisome that we rely on foreign technology for protection and defence. At least, our ancestors could make bows and arrows, spears and charms while the local blacksmiths still make some crude guns for hunters. But then, as the eminent scholar of dependency, Johan Galtung, wrote, you can only manufacture tanks when you have manufactured a tractor.

Permit me to ask: where is the Nigerian engineering in electronics and household products? Every year, hundreds of thousands of televisions, refrigerators, microwave ovens, wall clocks, wrist watches and myriads of other gadgets are brought into the country with zero engineering inputs from Nigeria. In 1972, Prof Makanjuola of Agriculture Engineering Department of Obafemi Awolowo University invented the yam pounding machine. For the reason of lack of local support, a Japanese firm took his invention and has been selling the machine to Nigeria and other parts of the world where pounded yam is enjoyed.

Lastly, where is our engineering in the automobile industry? What has happened since Prof Ayodele Awojobi made his famous contraption? There is a motor mechanic in every nook and cranny of our cities and villages, yet, there is no made in Nigeria car. Of course, we had assembly plants that used to assemble Volkswagen, Peugeot, Leyland and Steyr vehicles. Recently, Nissan has joined the fray but Steyr and Leyland have since shut down. Even if we don’t have a wholly indigenous vehicle manufacturer, at least we should be able to do what the United States did to the Japanese brands manufactured on its soil.

The deployment of engineering in economic development is limitless.

There are other rarefied areas in aviation, shipping and space exploration. It is my sincere hope that our engineers will critically engage these areas at this assembly, not just to lament but to critically engage the issues and come up with solutions and a realistic and implementable plan of action. There should also be provision performance review and evaluation at subsequent Assemblies.

No matter how far we are lagging behind, the right thing to do is to begin the journey to greatness by taking the first step. Once again, I thank you for the privilege to be here and chair this opening ceremony.

I welcome all

participants to this Assembly and wish us all a fruitful and successful meeting.

To the distinguished audience, I thank you for your kind attention.

USE OF GLO BLACKBERRY SUBSCRIPTION ON ANDROID PHONES

The simple magic of changing the IMEI number of Android Phones

Although the phenomenon of tweaking the International Mobile Station Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of android phones is no longer new, I wish to present the step by step approach for the benefit of a few that are yet to be familiar with the process, and also for reference purpose to many. As many Android users that are highly inquisitive to gain cheaper internet data bundle, the act of changing IMEI number has been quite rewarding. For instance, changing the IMEI number of many Android phones to that of a BlackBerry has given us the opportunity to use BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) on Glo Network. Recall that BIS is as cheap as N1000 for 3GB of data or even more. So permit me to remind you of the tweaking process:

1. Download, install and run Mobile Uncle Tools app

2. Click on Engineer Mode

3. Click on Engineer Mode (MTK)

4. Slide to Connectivity and click on CDS Information

5. Click on Radio Information

6. Select the slot you wish to change – either Phone 1 or Phone 2 (that’s SIM 1 or SIM 2)

7. Click on the box with AT+ and type, say, the letter E

8. from the dropdown that appear:

 AT+EGMR=1,7,”” – which is for Phone 1

 AT+EGMR=1,10,”” – which is for Phone 2

So select the desired SIM and move the cursor in between the inverted commas. Note that this overwrites whatever selection you have made in step 6 above.

9. Type in the newly generated IMEI of the particular phone you wish to change to e.g. AT+EGMR=1,7,”xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx” (I will give tips on how to generate IMEI later)

10. After keying in the number, click on SEND AT COMMAND; and if successful, the message would be “AT Command is mSent”

11. If instead a failure message, add a single space between T and +, and resend. If still not successful, try a different IMEI number.

NOTE:

• It is not advisable to use same IMEI for more than one device, although it will not even be able to send in most cases.
• Ensure you copied out the original IMEI of your device should you require to revert in future.
• There are applications that could help you generate IMEI numbers, particularly BlackBerry numbers 
• To check the IMEI of any phone, simply press *#06#

Then How to Use Glo Black Berry Subscription on Android

• Change your Access Point Name (APN) to: blackberry.net
• Change the IMEI of your phone to a BlackBerry IMEI number using the process above
• You can generate BlackBerry IMEI by using PIN IMEI Generator (this is done on the system) or generate one by the trial and error method by inputting the first 9 digits of any BlackBerry phone and then randomly complete it with any other six digits. Particular phone models always have same first 9 digits out of the 15 digits.
• Below are some first 9 digits of some BlackBerry phones: 354262045; 357484101; 355932031; 355466046; 351841033; 351971043
• To be sure you successfully effected the change to a functional BlackBerry IMEI, you will receive a message from 4321, which may read: "Welcome to BlackBerry ..."
• Subscribe for 3GB BlackBerry data from Glo by texting BBCMONTH to 777
• To check your data balance, dial *777*0#
• You can equally share your data to other devices via hotspot

Kindly drop your questions and comments.

Will be glad to help you generate IMEI, if that should give you issues.

ENSURE ADEQUATE SECURITY OF YOUR PASSWORDS

The rate of cyber crimes in our society today is increasingly alarming. Just as technology has offered us better and faster means of internet dealings, so have some group of persons succeeded in upgrading their defrauding techniques. As a matter of fact, cyber crimes have taken multiple dimensions.

Initially one would think that information saved online is secured forever, based on the fact that they cannot be lost; and can be retrieved anytime, anywhere in the case of loss, damage or virus attack. Again they can be sourced from anywhere even when not with your original device. But on the contrary and quite worrisome, ICT and cyber security experts have recently began to advice otherwise; that all vital information be saved offline in order to avoid being tampered with by hackers.

There is an Igbo adage which says: Filling a cup to the brim is a case while not filling it might mean an insult. Documents and information kept offline are prone to virus attack, system crash and can even be stolen - leading to a permanent loss. Yet, saving them online might mean exposure to hackers all over the world. So which way forward? Therefore, the safety of our information, both online and offline, are now cases of probability.

Be that as it may, a lot of information are already online by the terms of their usage. We operate a good number of online accounts such as email, social media platforms, and most importantly, internet banking. Coincidentally, these are the major interests of the numerous hackers. Thus we are already their targets; and so must endeavour to stay safe, secure and avert the danger of braking into our bank accounts or social media platforms, using it to defraud others on our behalf.

Password is the first line of defense against any cyber crimes. The tactics employed by these cyber criminals are generally geared towards getting hold of our passwords. Although there may be a few other means by which they can achieve this ugly aim, the easiest way their victims fall prey is by indirectly revealing their passwords or keeping them unsafe for the criminals to guess. Consider the fact that whenever a thief brakes into your house, he will first search your draw, wardrobe; raise your pillow, mattress, carpet, rug. So also have the cyber criminals got their first guess when they want to hack. And it's very unfortunate that a lot of persons do not pay closer attention to the security of their passwords.

COMMON PRACTICES THAT MAKE US VULNERABLE TO HACKERS

• Many people like easy passwords. Some use simple words like favour, blessing, password, etc as passwords; or simple digits like 1234, 2222, 7777, etc as ATM PIN
• Many people use their phone number as passwords
• Many also use their nickname or business name as passwords
• Many also consider their year of birth as ATM PIN
• Many people, especially women use the name of their son, daughter or husband as passwords
• So many people also use one password for numerous accounts

TIPS ON HOW TO STAY SAFE AND SECURE ONLINE

• Do not use any of your public information as password. These include phone number, name, nickname, business name, name of son/daughter/husband/wife/school, etc. They are all the first guess of any hacker.
• Do not save your password on phone or any device. It should be memorized by you alone.
• If you must write down your passwords, let the note itself be as secured as the passwords.
• Do not use same password for various accounts. Surely this is very difficult considering the various accounts that we operate, but you can device a pattern to remembering all while maintaining their uniqueness. Using just one password is as much dangerous as using one key for all your rooms, shops, offices, cars. An access to one would automatically entail access to all.
• Make use of strong passwords with a mixture of upper and lower cases, numbers, and symbols
• As much as possible, do not use a pronounceable word/phrase as your password. In fact, very strong passwords should not contain any vowels.
• Do not share your passwords to anybody – even your husband/wife, relatives, best friend, pastor, etc. Be fast to imagine that their account may have been hacked or could be hacked some other time.
• Do not believe any story that is too good to be real even if it is coming from someone you ordinarily should trust such as your spouse, relative, friend, pastor, lecturer, boss, etc. Their accounts are also vulnerable to hackers.
• Do not reply to any suspicious mail or try to enter your vital information, even if you do not hit the ‘submit’ button.
• Do not click on any suspected link. They can generate virus attack that will break and expose your security details OR may simply be a cloned website intended to get your details.
• Do not believe that you have won or could win millions of dollars in a lottery you never subscribed.
• In the case of internet banking and online payments, be sure to use secure websites. Secure websites usually begin with https:// where ‘s’ means secured. You will also see the symbol of a padlock. All these indicate that the site is encrypted.
• Remember to sign out after using a public computer.
• Keep your browser and applications up-to-date. Old versions may be susceptible to virus attack and the activities of hackers.
• The security of your passwords begins with limiting the access to your personal devices. You can make use of screen lock.
• Critically analyse any link telling you to enter your details. They have began to clone sites like yahoo, gmail, facebook, and even bank websites. You may think you are logging in while you are simply giving out your details. Always take a closer look on the address bar to be sure you are logging in to the intended website, not a cloned one.
• Very importantly, you can dedicate a particular email address for your online banking only, and never give it out for any purpose or even write it down any where. Don't even use it to send mail to any of your other address let alone to another person!

HOW TO GENERATE SECURE PASSWORDS
There are a thousand ways of having very strong passwords, which cannot be guessed by anybody. You can decide to use a particular phrase or statement to remember your unique passwords. For instance, you can memorize a statement like the one below and use it to generate a password as you may desire, and only you will know it whenever you want to key it in. Example: “I wish to keep my gmail safe and secure.”
The following passwords could be generated from the statement above, which can only be interpreted by you.
Iw2kmgS&S; Iw2kmgS/Secure; Iw-2-kmgSafe; etc
As you can see, none of the above is a pronounceable word. They can only be
memorized by the owner alone! That's just one method. Device your own means.

CONCLUSION
Nothing is as painful as falling prey to these 419ners; and so we must ensure to stay safe from their evil acts. Keep your passwords safe, strong, long, and impossible to guess. Make all necessary analysis before believing any information received online, no matter from whom it‘s coming from. And indeed you must realise that nobody has ever won or will ever win millions of dollars, legitimately, from an unsubscribed lottery as you may be promised by these unrepentant fraudsters. Kindly be warned! Many have been revealing their passwords to hackers unkowingly, just that they don't have much money in their banking transactions yet as to become their real target.