By Lola Omowaye & Bukola Olamona
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Mr Olabode  Ajibola Olasehinde is a teacher in the Department of Fabrication and Welding, Government Technical College, GTC, Owo, and a winner of the National Productivity Merit Award (NPOM). He speaks on his desire to reduce  Nigerians’ reliance on petrol for electricity generation towards reducing problems occasioned by  toxic generator emission.

 Excerpts:

The fuelless tricycle and generator, whose initiative was it?

It is  my  initiative and I came about it during the time of fuel crisis in the country.

When was that precisely?

I can say we had been on it since 2011 because then there was fuel scarcity. There was a man who got beaten even after spending four days at the filling station just because he wanted to buy ten litres of fuel. I sat down and came up with this idea, that is there not a way we could develop fuelless so that we can do away with fuel to bail the people out .

And at times when you go to the hospital, you see most of these motorcycles, even vehicles, their noise, especially when their silencers  are leaking, disturbs people a lot and you know also that in areas where people are hypertensive this could pose a danger. Also, the emissions from these machines, particularly, when oil and gas mix together, contains carbon monoxide and it is toxic to any living being. It kills, it is a poisonous gas, and I  said that if we can do something that will not depend on petrol, we will save the people of the horror that normally go through during fuel scarcity. Two, we will help the atmospheric condition because the carbon monoxide apart from hurting us, depletes the ozone layer thereby exposing us to harsh sunlight that causes cancer.

I said if I can do something and project it to  the whole world, may be the country will come to our aid, so that was what brought the idea of fuelless, motorcycle. Through it I won the national award and represented Nigeria in Brazil. We also won when we came back everything died down.

We just believe in making hoes and cutlasses but technology has gone further than that. If we are to call ourselves a nation and we want to be self-reliant, we have to harness all these ideas together and do something.

But when God says yes, this place will be remembered as so many talents abound here.

I have my workshop and some people came to me that can I do the generator and I said yes and I was given money to do it and I decided that  I will not do it in my workshop but with my student so that they can learn from it because it is what they see and partake in that they can learn from as the challenges outside is more than welding cutlasses and hoes, especially in agriculture, mobiles and so I did the fuelless generator  for that person. We even took the picture when  we were coupling it.

What has the government done for the school?

For now, nothing but we are hoping that the present government will beam its light of grace on us as we have a bunch of talents here.

The fuelless generator, what capacity is the engine?

The most effective ones are from 2.5kv downward, 2kv, 1.9kv,but the one I did is 1.9kv because the lesser  the capacity of the alternator the lesser it will consume the battery because it relies on battery to work. We incorporated a charger. As it is working it charges itself, so energy lost is been gained back but not hundred, percent but it can still serve  you for  ten hours. Then I did one thing with it because our weather here is not suitable  for batteries. When you leave a battery for two, three, four days not using or charging, it will be getting low and eventually goes off. So I normally put a solar panel to convert sunlight into direct current(DC) to store in the battery, is to through an inverter that has been incorporated inside that generator. The whole principle behind is that  the alternator must be rolled to a certain speed, then it will now generate current. It can power fan, television, charge laptop. The 1.9kv cannot operate a refrigerator because the capacity of the alternator is not even meant for it. The higher the alternator the higher the battery you will use.

Are your equipment fabricated locally?

Yes, most of it are fabricated locally and most can be shipped. For example the hand tools like the screw drivers, hammer, chisel, cutting tools. The components that we put together can be sourced locally, for example, the charger, solar panel, then the body will be constructed with the help of a welding machine.

We also have a planting machine, it will till the ground, plant, cover it by itself. Yours is to pour your seed into the little funnel and push it. You set it to the depth you want like one or two inches depending on the kind of seed you want to plant. If you want to plant maize you will set it like one inch into the ground.

How much will it cost to fabricate a unit of a fuelless generator?

For the 1.9kv we will have up to 210 or 250 thousand naira because we have to incorporate solar. You don’t use oil, fuels, its only battery, no plug and no mechanical serviceable part in it apart from   the solar panel. So there a lot of thing that we can do here. We just pray that if the current government can beam their light of mercy on us.

Even the vehicle that they are using is a product of technological prowess. We have a mechanic workshop, carpentry workshop here but they don’t patronise us. They buy elsewhere. Here our houses are built by our colleagues.

What department did all these?

Fabrication and Welding department, Government Technical College, Owo. Like this,  multipurpose oven, you can be cooking on top and be baking below and let’s say you are using light before and the light went off, you can just put your charcoal  in the middle and light it. Then behind it we incorporated a DC ,where a small fan will at interval be blowing and stopping so that ashes will not cover the burning  charcoal. But if there is a light there is a mechanism here that at a particular time it goes off automatically, and gives you a ringing signal that what you are doing is okay. You can use it in both urban and rural area, even if there is no electricity.