Ikeja Electric expands capacity, takes in fresh engineers

Solomon Ezeme

As part of efforts to increase its service delivery, and expand human resource capacity, the
Ikeja Electric (I.E) inducted fresh engineers into its workforce.

The induction ceremony which was held at NECA House, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, on Thursday, saw a set of 20 fresh graduates with cognate industry experience offer employment to serve as Engineer in the company.

While speaking on the theme of the induction programme: “Ikeja Electric Young Engineers Induction”, the Managing Director of the Electricity Distribution Company (DisCo), Mrs. Folake Soetan, explained that the purpose of the programme was to infuse the vision of the Ikeja Electric into the new set of engineers to imbibe.

She said, “The Ikeja Electric Young Engineers Induction program is a 12-month developmental programme, and it is designed to be interesting in nature, in terms of learning- how you are going to be better engineers and achieve a better learning experience. “

“Our focus (that is, the objective) is that, after the 12 months experience, you will have a wholistic and practical understanding of the Nigerian power industry, which is very critical,” she said.

Backstory

The Distribution company had earlier rolled out a public invitation, seeking interested applicants (especially fresh graduates or persons with nothing more than 2 years of experience in the engineering field) to submit their applications for the programme.

According to her, only 20 applicants eventually made it into the induction, out of over 2000 people who applied.

She said the programme has been around for over 6 years, with several success stories of previous inductees.

“You were carefully selected based on the process that was put in place, with regards this programme. Over 2000 people applied, there were different processes that were adopted.

“There were interview sessions, there were sessions, and you happened to be among the few people that made it through that rigorous exercise.” she said.

She disclosed that facilitators will be deployed to train the new workforce and help them apply their acquired knowledge.

“There are several approaches we are going to adopt during this your 12-month training. One of the approaches is the use of facilitators to help train you.
“You will have on-the-job learnings, you will have practical experiences where you will be working in the field and implementing the trainings that you have been taught in the past, over the 12-month period.

“There will be rotation. You will be rotated among the departments of Ikeja Electric, which will give you a rounded and rich experience as to what it is you are doing in Ikeja Electric.

“It will be very rigorous, but after the 12-month period, you will be glad you were part of this programme,” she said.

Mrs Ibiene Okereke, Managing Director of Energy Training Center, ETC (the company in charge of the training), bemoaned the low number of females among the inductees, she challenged all of the four (4) females among them to go back and inspire other females in their alma maters, to join programmes like this, in the energy sector.

The Chief H.R.O of the Ikeja DisCo, Mr. Henry Abiola, told the young engineers to get prepared to learn different terminologies as the company is known for acronyms.

He equally advised them to be hard-working if they aspire to achieve success in the field.

During a brief interview with EnergyDay immediately after the programme, Ikwuegbu Chioma, one of the newly inducted engineers, told our reporter that the programme will enable her explore more opportunities in the power sector as she had worked with the Enugu DisCo, before now.

“I feel really fulfilled as this will provide me with the opportunity to contribute more to the power sector.

“I have worked with the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company before, and I will be glad to improve my knowledge and experience here at Ikeja Electric.” Chioma said.

Another inductee, David Omokwe, a graduate of the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, said he is looking forward to applying the knowledge he has gathered to contribute to the growth of not only the I.E, but the entire Nigerian power sector.

“It’s an honour being among the selected few. I am prepared to give my best to this company and the power sector. I will be implementing all that I have learnt to achieve this,” he said.