A former Executive Vice President, Upstream, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd. (NNPC Ltd.), Engr. Adokiye Tombomieye, has called for skills transfer and knowledge sharing among young engineers under the mentorship of older and more experienced professionals.
According to him, sharing experiences over time, best practices, and coaching should be the focus of mentorship in the industry.
Adokiye participated in a webinar panel discussion on Tuesday, focusing on the topic of “Building a Sustainable Future through Strategic Mentorship.”
The Young Engineers Forum of Nigeria (YEFoN) organized the interactive session, according to the Persecondnews correspondent who covered the webinar.
Adokiye identified some strategies for effective mentoring in the profession, including building trust relationships—relationships between mentor and mentee; setting goals and expectations; knowledge sharing; encouraging innovations; and entrepreneurship.
Adokiye also outlined strategies for balancing global innovations in the profession with local challenges, adding that there was a need to contextualise global innovations and accept the social responsibility of the local environment, identify local needs, and develop local content.
The former NNPC Ltd. VP, Upstream, also suggested fostering relationships and collaboration with local stakeholders, addressing infrastructure gaps, and promoting policy and regulatory frameworks by ensuring policy adherence and alignment by the government.
“There is a need to emphasize sustainable solutions, monitor, and evaluate whatever you are doing—lessons learnt for others to take a cue from.
“Then you need to celebrate successes. A lot of people do not celebrate success. I think we should celebrate it when it is achieved,’’ he said.
On the local challenges confronting young engineers, Adokiye listed infrastructure and resource constraints, environmental and social challenges (climate change, poverty in the country, and government policies that have affected the citizens), capacity building, and brain drain (Japa syndrome).
All these issues are affecting us as a nation.
Another panellist, Engr. Chichi Emenike, who serves as the Acting Managing Director and Gas Asset Manager at Neconde Energy Ltd, asserted that mentoring is essential for uplifting the younger generation.
“Mentorship helps to facilitate competitiveness,’’ she said, noting that there is a huge gap between the number of menfolk and women and girls who are mentored in the industry.
“Networking opportunities should be taken advantage of. Your network is your net worth. Mentorship never ends,’’ Emenike said.
The third panellist, Engr. Patrick Obidoyin, Co-founder and Managing Director, Lancaster Farms, said mentors should not necessarily come from one’s profession alone and stressed the need for knowledge sharing to attain success.
Obidoyin, who said he was mentored by the publisher of Spectrum Books in Ibadan, declared:“You can go into other sectors as engineers like agriculture, oil and gas, mining and others. But you need to study necessary documents to be able to operate effectively in those fields.’’
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