Can you give an insight into the Nigerian space project and how far it has gone?

The aim is to go now on our own satellite so that we do not depend on other satellite operators when we need satellite. It is when you need your own vehicle and you want to travel, you just need to call your driver and say oh! I'm going to Lagos. If you don't have your own, you either go to the motor park or you go and charter. First of all, on this, we want to own satellite. When that is done we can get what we call real-time data. Because if we need urgent satellite data, now we have to ask other countries and it may take three months before it comes. And by which time the needs may have been overtaken by events. The second reason is that we want to demonstrate that Nigerians are capable of imbibing high technology and sustaining any big project, because sustainability is very important and that is why I say we are not only acquiring the satellite, we also want to develop human capacity. On transfer in satellite technology we need to train Nigerians in building satellite, launching satellite and operating satellite, so that in future, we will not be going back all the time to the West or to the East to build our own satellite.

There is also the service that it is going to provide for the nation. What people don't know is that Nigeria spends a lot of money in acquiring satellite data in almost all the ministries: water resources, forestry, Agric, FCT, boundary etc. We spend a lot of money in acquiring satellite data and as I said most of them are not real-time data, but if we have our own satellite, we are going to provide those services, any government or even private sector like oil companies that needs satellite data, they make a request to us and you can have your satellite data within 48hours. There are many other problems that this satellite will provide solution to. We are working on Abuja map and is most completed now. You see, recently there was demolition of houses in Abuja because they were illegally constructed in areas that are meant for other things in the original plan of the city. We are producing Abuja map to show what it is now, where expansions can take place, it will show almost all the features. So that it will help government, especially the FCT in the development of Abuja so that it doesn't become a mega city which is full of slums. The same map the FCT can use it to collect their tenement rate because we are going to establish a data base, showing number of houses, where they are in the city it will help to map out possible road, determining road for expansion, management of resources, all these things are what we are going to produce and we are going to use satellite data.

You seem to be ready for the launch. Tell us the level of preparedness

Well, I will say, as far as the satellite is concerned, the satellite has been ready since May. So it is now for us to launch it. Don't forget that the date for the launch date was formally scheduled for July 28 but for some reasons, the facility to be used for the launch was being used by the owners, the Russian space agency, actually it is a military facility. So the launch was re-scheduled to 26th of this month. But as far as satelite is ready in Moscow and our team there. I mean Nigerian engineers that are also involved in the launch campaign and they are giving me update regularly. I got a call from there this morning, (Wednesday). Actually before you put your satellite on the launch you have to check all the systems all again, because we transport them from UK, where it was manufactured, to Russia. So you have to check it all over again to be sure all the parts are working well. And the report I got this morning is that all the systems are working well.

By Monday, preparation will begin to put it on the launcher, I will say the satellite is 100% ready, the launching now is another issue.

Nigerians are wondering why the launching is taking place in Russia.

I think people don't really understand that the launching industry is not onwed by many countries because it is high-tech. There are only five countries in the world that have the capacity to launch. These are US, Europe, jointly owned, China, India and Russian.

Brazil is trying to develop its own but recently this month they tried one but it exploded. So there are only five countries that have the capability to launch satellite and of all of them, the cheapest one is Russia, in terms of cost. And the reason is obvious, some of this launchers are converted from military use to civilian use. They were as good as being destroyed because of this treaties, they were just missile launchers that are being converted to satellite launchers. So it is very cheap. That is why people now go to Russia and in fact it is affecting launching industry in the other countries because Russia is offering, may be, one tenth of what it would cost in other countries.

Not only that, in terms of rocketry, Russians is the best in Rocketry because they are very good in mathematics, don't forget that they are the first that went to the moon and into space, and don't forget that they were the first to put a man space laboratory. It was meant to be there for 3 years, it was there for 13 years so when you are hearing that international space station being launched by America and Russia, the Russians have been on edge. So they are very good in terms of space technology particularly in rocketry.

I will want to know the involvement of Nigerian scientist in the building of it?

As part of the project we include as part of the project training of engineers to be part of this project right from the inception in the designs and building of the satellite. In fact, in the mission definition; in the assembly and integration; in the fabrication of maps and in the launching and the operation.

So we have 50 Nigerians, selected from over 5,000 applicants. We conducted tests for over 50 engineers, using 3 centres, Enugu, Lagos and Kaduna. And out of this 50 scientist engineers between the ages of 25 & 35. We narrowed it to 120, we brought expert from UK and our own scientist from the private sectors and Nigerian experts to now interview them. From then, we now have 15 engineers that now went to Surrey, trained for 16 months, participated in the building of this satellite, they are back home now, they are going to manage this satellite, they are there in the centre. Two of them are in Moscow right now, also participating in the launching campaign because it is a total package, every aspect of this technology, we want to acquire.

You have been speaking scientifically since, the man on the street will want to know how satellite provides food, security, water resources, control of natural disasters and getting accurate population census. Can you tell me in layman language how satellite will affect or help in these areas?

Well, let me give you an example, which we are working on now. The Federal Government has embarked on a project which is meant to enhance production of rice. And we have different stages of rice produced in Nigeria. We have what is called upland rice which is produced in Abakaliki and some in Abeokuta. And we have what is called Fadama rice, which is in flood place.

The Fadama is an Hausa word. And what we are doing right now, is to use satellite images to produce a map of flood plains in Nigeria. In other words, to mark the Fadama land in Nigeria and at the end we are going to produce what is know as Fadama land information system. We will do soil analysis, the extent of Fadama land in Nigeria, we are going to use past weather pattern to judge in the future. Now we are going to make this one available to Ministry of Agriculture at the state and federal levels and if possible have extension service through which we could easily go to the farmers and say look, if you want to plant Fadama rice, don't plant it there because you have gone beyond the flood plain, you won't get any gain. From our own satellite imagery, this is the extent of Fadama land.

And from our own analysis, this place will be better than that place. In that case such a farmer will be corrected instead of cultivating in a non-Fadama land. The farmer could also be informed that because of the rain pattern, it is better for him to plant at the particular month of the year. Those in the South will plant earlier because of the easy rainfall while those in the North will plant later because of the lateness in rainfall up North. This is the proper way you can enhance rice production, and of course when you do that more farmers will be engaged, they will generate wealth for themselves. Then you reduce foreign exchange which is used in importing rice from America. You can see benefit going directly to individuals and even to the nation.

Now you talk of census, you know census in this country is one of the most contentious issues. We can use satellite to conduct census in two ways. One: you get your satellite in a fix which you throw the whole of Nigeria and then you can decide that well I am going to divide Nigeria into may be 1million enumeration areas. We are going to do this on the map and do you know in a map of Nigeria, using map to draw may not help you because when you are going through on a top hill which is not even habitable and you may not even know whether human beings are there. So this will tell you where the population is, it will also inform you on how to demarcate the enumeration areas that are accessible and feasible in terms of counting.

And then it will give you an idea of the number of people in an area because if you have enumeration area with 50 houses, and you have another enumeration area with 1000 houses, let say an average of 5 people live in a house. You can be sure of the idea of the number of people you are going to find in each of this enumerated areas. Of course you do what is called ground fusing after looking at your satellite map, you can then go down to the areas and try to corroborate what they have done. With this it will help us. If anybody wants to go to court to dispute the segment or the result of any particular place, we can rely on satellite data to rely on. Meanwhile, there could be some errors, but the errors should not be too wide for it not to be acceptable. You can see these are the benefits to individuals and the national planning.

What of areas of water resources?

Water resources is also very interesting because you know, we can use your space images to determine water shed, water levles So if your want to construct a dam, you can say, it is better for me to construct this dam in this particular area, and when you go deeper, there are some censors that can access underground water table. So when you want to sink your bole-hole, you don't sink borehole in areas where the yield will be very low. I keep saying that if you want to provide water for local government 'A' and you look at the underground water system and discover there is no water there. Instead of you, just for political reasons, sinking 10 boreholes that will not yield. And you have another local government 'B' with good underground water system. Add the 10 borehole you have in mind for 'A' to that of 'B' and you have 20 and then pipe to local government area 'A', they will still have water. That is the most important than sinking boreholes in areas where it will not yield is wasting of natural and human resources. It just wasting of government money.

So those are the areas where there are problems that could be adequately planned for with the aid of satellite data in this country. We are just coming up with what is called geo-information policy for the country which is going to be very useful, we have not had that before and I'm happy that we are about first or second in Africa that will come up with such a scientific breakthrough. And this our geo-information policy has started being used as a reference point. It is going to be like a Bible, it will contain information on everything. Let us look at roads. For instance, number of kilometres in the country, when they were constructed and the traffic density on the road has caused damage. So if you want to construct new roads, we will know what to do, you can go back access the data. And it will help you in taking decision. So all these things, we are putting in place, we all work hand-in-hand. You know satellite building on its own is nothing, unless we can process it and convert it into information.