The President of Nigeria Inshore Offshore Oil and Gas Professionals , Dr. Christopher Imumolen, has said Nigeria loses over $91 billion annually to student migration to Ghana, United Stated and Canada.

He stated this after a brief meeting with the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu in Abuja on the plan of the organization to establish an oil and gas university in Nigeria.

“If the institution comes on stream, the country will be saved the $91 billion which Nigeria loses annually to student migration to foreign countries including Ghana, United Stated and Canada”, he said.

Imumolen continued, “Nigeria loses over $91 billion to student migration to Ghana, US and Canada. We can save that, we need more universities in Nigeria. We do not even have a university in Nigeria that can train competently oil and gas force.

“We are working to develop and set up an oil and gas university and it is going to be  the first of its kind in Nigeria. It is a private oil and gas university in Nigeria. We are looking at setting up the university latest eight months from now.

“We have universities in Nigeria that are doing their best but they still need to do more. One we are coming to reduce the cost of running oil and gas programs. We are looking at cutting across all courses that apply to oil and gas. The university is also going to cover other courses that relate to oil and gas and non-oil and gas related courses.

“The minister has given us his words. We are not just seeing the minister because we want to boycott accreditation. Obviously we are going to go through accreditation process. We have a very good assurance from him and we are happy about that.

“Onshore offshore is not a university but we have given out over 2000 scholarships to individuals who have studied critical engineering and oil and gas related courses.”

In his response, the minister, advised Imumolen to fine tune accreditation processes with the National Universities Commission while encouraging the idea.

Azeez