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Bart Nnaji: The Challenge Of Facing The Future is the authorized biography of Professor Bart O. Nnaji – FAS, FAEng, CON, NNOM. It tells the insightful and inspiring story of coming of age, from being coddled into a near-flop at school by a doting mother to being instantly transformed into a student at the top of the class under the charge of his teacher uncle.
The adversities suffered during the tragic war between Nigeria and Biafra paradoxically galvanized Bart to move forward to make up for lost time. After winning a sports scholarship to study in the United States, he earned his doctorate in record time and was inducted into the university’s Sports Hall of Fame.
He has distinguished himself as a professor of robotics at the University of Massachusetts and an ALCOA Foundation professor in manufacturing engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. His fundamental research in e-Design was revolutionary. Bart’s selfless service to Nigeria as Minister of Science and Technology and Minister of Energy cannot be denied.
His persistence in founding Geometric Power Limited, the first indigenous private power company in Nigeria, smacks of legend. With his devoted life partner, Agatha, Bart built a future for his home community Umuode and for humanity.
INTRODUCTION
It takes more than nerd audacity to tackle a topic as complex as Professor Bart Nnaji’s. From the beginning we had to deal with an impossible prodigy who at just three years old or so deigned to buy the largest truck called “Gwongworo” with the least valuable currency, a cent! Bart paid for his dream truck and eagerly awaited delivery only to have it denied.
His loving mother had to apply all her ingenuity to console her dear son. Pampering mothering for young Bart would eventually become such a distraction that the boy had no interest in school and scored zeros in arithmetic. The mother had to come to school with the accusation that it was the teacher who scored zero and not her beloved son! To put an end to the bad matter, Bart had to be saved by his mother and sent to live with his uncle who was a teacher.
It worked magically. Bart started out at the top of his class and was duly promoted to skip class due to his genius. Its progress was delayed due to the 1966 coup crisis in Nigeria and the concomitant advent of the 1967–1970 Biafran War. Bart and family bore the brunt of the tragic war as refugees before returning to their hometown which had come under the control of Nigeria’s federal forces.
Bart’s studies resumed in earnest at St Patrick’s College, Emene, and he passed out with distinction. A notable development in Bart’s final year at school was his taking up sport during the inter-house sports competition and dusting off accomplished athletes. He was given a job at the Enugu Sports Council to represent the then East Central State in national competitions. Bart’s breakthrough manifested itself when he was offered an athletic scholarship to study at St John’s University in New York in 1977. He received a bachelor’s degree in physics in May 1980, graduating first in his class and with honors.
His university studies took him only two years and nine months. Although he achieved academic feats, he also broke university sporting records in the long jump and triple jump for which he would later be inducted into the St John’s University Hall of Fame.
Bart went a step further to earn his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and operations research from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in January 1982. He then earned a PhD in May 1983, specializing in manufacturing engineering and doing his thesis in computer-aided design of robots. He concluded his studies with postdoctoral certificate courses at the esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1985, taking courses in robot manipulators, computer vision, and automated manufacturing.
Interestingly, Bart established his Foundation in 1984 to sponsor the education of people in his hometown and community development in general. He played an integral role as Director of the Automation and Robotics Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst from 1984 to 1997. He was Professor of Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, UMass, Amherst from 1983 to August 31, 1997.
Following the call from the federal government of Nigeria, he served as the Minister of Science and Technology, where he carried out the task of re-establishing the Ministry in 1993. The arduous task, which lasted just three months, left him drained on his sickbed!
Bart was named the ALCOA Foundation Professor in Manufacturing Engineering in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh from 1996 to 2003. He upped the ante as the William Kepler Whiteford Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Pittsburgh from July 2002 to September 2007.
He was the founder and director of the US National Science Foundation’s Industrial/University Cooperative Research E-Design Center for IT-enabled Design and Manufacturing Systems for Mechanical Engineering Products and Systems from June 2003 to August 2007.
On the domestic front in Nigeria, he was elected as the Pioneer President of the Independent Energy Suppliers Association of Nigeria from 2007 to 2010. President Goodluck Jonathan appointed him as Special Adviser to the President on Energy and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Energy from June 2010 to July 2011. As Honorable Minister of Energy, Federal Republic of Nigeria, from July 2011 to 28 August 2012, led the reform of the Nigerian energy sector system under the leadership of President Jonathan.
Professor Bart Nnaji broke the spell of power in Nigeria by establishing Geometric Power Limited, Nigeria’s first indigenous private power company, after 20 years of dogged struggle, resilience and uncommon integrity.
A fervent supporter of Nigeria and its future, he refused to bow to any form of intrigue and sabotage in the pursuit of the common good. He is the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Nigeria Prize for Science, the $100,000 prize aimed at stimulating the advancement of science and technology to address Nigeria’s development issues.
A restless innovator, he launched the $10 million Bart Nnaji Engineering Innovation Competition aimed at bringing palm wine tapping into the modern era. It involves designing the future by inviting “bold thinkers, builders and innovators to design a safer, smarter way to harvest palm wine without climbing trees.” The challenge goes like this: “Palm wine is a highly nutritious and commercially valuable product, both locally and internationally. However, the traditional method of harvesting depends on manual climbing which is dangerous, exhausting and increasingly unsustainable. With the aging population of skilled tapers being phased out, the industry faces a serious continuity challenge. Younger generations are understandably reluctant to adopt a process defined by physical risk. This competition invites the brightest engineering minds of Nigeria to introduce practical intervention through technology and design.”
Professor Bart Nnaji is a reason to believe.
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a freelance writer, the only Nigerian journalist to have written a daily column, “Today’s Maxim”, for a national newspaper. He holds a BA from the University of Ife with Prof Wole Soyinka as head of department and holds a Masters in Literature from the University of Lagos. In 1989 he was Distinguished Visitor at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of Western Ontario, Canada. He was nominated for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2008. He wrote the narration for Scottish photographer Owen Logan’s picture book, Masquerade: Michael Jackson Alive in Nigeria, exhibited at STILLS, Scotland’s Center For Photography, Edinburgh in 2014. He was president of the jury for the James Currey Prize 2024. He is the author of God of Poetry, The Missing Link and A Play of Ghosts. Uzoatu lives in Nigeria with his wife Chidimma and their four children.
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