Iyinoluwa Oni, one of the 50 executive trainees sent by Dangote refinery to a study trip at some of the best refineries in the world, says it is a tough decision to leave her fiance behind in Lagos, but she will survive.
While relaying her story to TheCable, Oni, who would be away from the country for the next 12 months, said she got to be on the team “by God’s grace”.
After graduating from Covenant University as an electrical electronics engineer in 2014, she served till 2015, before she applied for the Dangote adverts she saw in the newspapers.
Oni’s man proposed marriage shortly before she embarked on the trip two weeks ago, and she could not hide her mixed feelings about lacking the chance to spend some more time with him.
“There are a couple of people who are even married here; there’s someone who is married with four kids, some have two kids.
“It is not really a big deal, we’d all cope; we’d all survive. I’m sure everybody here; the married, the engaged, the non-engaged, I’m sure we all have loved ones that we are leaving behind and we would all be fine.
“We’d all be fine eventually. It’s all for the greater good. India is reputed to have the best technology in the world, I’m hoping they’d pass whatever knowledge and expertise they have to us, and we would in turn come to contribute to this landmark refinery that is kicking off in Nigeria.”
Dapo Bamgbade, a graduate of the University of Ibadan, said he got to know about the training via online adverts and applied, wrote the tests, scaled the interview before emerging one of the successful candidates.
Alonge Alexandria, an indigene of Ekiti state, who graduated from Osun state university, said he was going to represent not just Dangote refinery, but also the Nigerian nation.
“The main purpose of the training is to go there (India Engineering Limited) to acquire more knowledge and skills, and to learn how a refinery works, also to add value to myself and to my country, Nigeria,” the civil engineer told TheCable.
Mohan Kumar, director human capital management and project support for Dangote group, said the group was sending the trainees from across the country to learn from the best in the world.
He added that when they return to the country, they would engage in building the largest refinery anywhere in the world, “right here in Lagos”.
“When we start, we can go up to 640,000 barrels per day,” he said, emphasizing that it would be starting at over 100,000 barrels ahead of the “greenfield capacity” of the world’s largest refinery in India.
Mansur Ahmed, executive director stakeholder management and corporate communications, said when the refinery is done, it would become an “anomaly” to see two or three cars queueing in a petrol station.
These Nigerian engineers are just a batch of the expected 800 Nigerians Dangote Group says it would be sending to India over the next 24 months.
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Dear Mr Abdulsalami Abdulkadir, where are your facts. Show us the number and we believe you. I trust Dangote than the most the senior public servant in the country. Do you know what I felt like seeing those young folks showing that going out of the country to learn, especially in the context of the purpose of the trip, felt like. These are collection of young people that seem to have bought into the idea of their company head; and they seem ready to support because it would eventually benefit the country to get foreign importation of fuel. Nigeria has been such a shame.
How we wish those Nigerians looters can emulate Dangote business style and by returning stolen money kept in foreign bank account to grow and develop her economy .Nigerian new slogan therefore Looters return all stolen money stack in foreign bank to industrialize Nigeria,and creates millions jobs for the unemployed youths.
Amen!