AIB, UNILORIN sign MoU

In its drive to ensure safety in the aviation industry, the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) under the Federal Ministry of Transportation has sealed a partnership agreement with the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) on the training of its personnel in capacity building and development on materials failure analysis.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed Tuesday last week between the Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering of the University and the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) at the AIB’s Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos head office.

With the partnership agreement, the nation’s aviation industry personnel will be able to undergo training in capacity building and development using their world class Accident Investigation Laboratory at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

Speaking at the signing, the Commissioner/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AIB, Mr Akin Olateru, said the partnership is the first of its kind by any educational institution in the country, adding that it would be beneficial to the agency and the university.

Lamenting that both private and public business organisations expend little or no resources to fund researches and projects in the country, Olateru, an engineer, said that Harvard University in the United States alone has a budget in excess of $30 billion for research purposes.

“This is a very important occasion for us and I believe the University of Ilorin too should be proud of this occasion”, he said, adding that in his 30 years service in the aviation industry, “this is the first that I know of that an aviation agency is signing an MOU with any higher institution in this country for the benefit of Nigerians”.

Olateru promised to involve more educational institutions in the use of the AIB facility as a way of increasing its Internally-Generated Revenues (IGR).

In his remarks, the UNILORIN Vice-Chancellor, Prof AbdulGaniyu Ambali, represented by the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Prof Y.A. Jimoh, noted that it was the first time the institution would sign an MoU with any of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the country and expressed hope that it would be mutually beneficial to parties involved.

Jimoh said that Nigeria as a whole would gain from the partnership, saying that rather than travel abroad for research, it could be done with ease in the country.

He enjoined other academic institutions in the country to take a cue from the University of Ilorin by looking inward whenever they are conducting researches, stressing that this would also go a long way in curbing capital flight out of the country.