It was a gathering of industry leaders, distinguished personalities and experts in the oil and gas industry at the recently concluded Oil & Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria (OGTAN) National Awards event.
Held at the Lagos Oriental hotel, the event celebrated persons, parastatals, agencies, associations, institutes, academia and oil & gas (energy) industry prospectors & practitioners who have made major impact, contributions, developed initiatives, rendered egalitarian services, provided support systems / infrastructure or carried out research, all designed to drive growth and development of Human Capacity Development in the Oil and Gas Industry.
This year’s awardees are notable persons and organisations within the industry, regulatory and academic sectors.
Simbi Kesiye Wabote, executive secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) was awarded the Industry Human Capacity Development Icon; the Petroleum Technology Development Fund got the Training Sponsorship & Infrastructural Provisions for Human Capacity Development award; while the Excellence in National & Regional Capacity Development in the Energy Industry award was given to Nicolas Odinuwe, chairman Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria.
Mike Obi Onyekonwu, former director of Institute of Petroleum Studies, University of Port Harcourt was awarded the Excellence in Training Services & Leadership – Father of OGTAN; Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited got award for Outstanding Support to OGTAN HCD Goals & Visions; while the National Board for Technical Education got the Excellence in Regulations & Standards for National Skills Development award.
The Nigerian Content Development & Monitoring Board received the Excellence in Human Capital Development within the Energy Industry award.
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Sam Azoka Onyechi, president, OGTAN during his keynote address said the gathering was to celebrate friends, mentors, the visionary and supportive persons and institutions who believed OGTAN was worth being created and who still believes the association has a future worth protecting and being invested in.
“Thanks to all our distinguished awardees who have in one way or the other made OGTAN what it is today and are still guiding her, nurturing her and encouraging her to what she has potentials to be – a formidable regional trade association of repute for providing professionally skilled human resource for the oil and gas/energy industry and a champion of employment generation for our nation.”
He assured that the awards committee has gone the extra mile to ensure that given the overriding criteria for qualification for the award which has a commendable impact on human capacity development, the selected awardees are simply round pegs in round holes. “Their suitability in meeting the objectives of these Awards is simply unquestionable,” he said.
Onyechi said to each of them however OGTAN has open doors that help articulate the greatness of what they have done and the potential they have to aid even greater things to be done.
He said skills development can never go out of fashion, even in an emerging world of artificial intelligence; human skills and intellect would still be needed to create the machines and the software to govern them.
According to Onyechi, the value proposition to create OGTAN is a foresighted, sustainable initiative of the Nigerian Content Development & Monitoring Board, and so the efforts needed for sustainability would be directed at upgrading, upskilling, upscaling, retooling and uptooling.
