By Engr Sultan-Othman ‘Tobi Adekoya
I work on bridges. On the Lagos Emergency Bridge Repair Works Project with Julius Berger, I spend my days with technicians, craftsmen, and artisans, the skilled hands that hold Nigeria’s infrastructure together. Whenever the conversation turns to the future, to careers, to opportunity, I hear the same word repeated like a quiet prayer: japa.
Japa, the Yoruba slang for “flee”, has become shorthand for the dream that consumes Nigeria’s brightest young minds: leave. Get out. Find a future somewhere else. Europe. America. Anywhere but here. It is not laziness or ingratitude. It is a rational response to a system that has, for too long, failed to recognise its own talent.
But something is changing. As the Speaker for Young Engineers at the 15th Mechanical Engineering Distinguished Lecture, a division of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, I have spent the last year at the centre of that change, advocating for a transformation in how Nigeria trains, certifies, and values its engineers. The tool driving that transformation has a name: Outcome-Based Education, OBE. And the prize at the end of it is Nigeria’s permanent membership in the Washington, Sydney, and Dublin Accords, the international frameworks that tell the world that our engineers are world class.
What OBE Actually Means and Why It Matters
In 1994, William Spady defined Outcome-Based Education as “clearly focusing and organizing everything in an educational system around what is essential for all students to be able to do successfully at the end of their learning experiences.” Strip away the academic language and what you have is a radical but obvious idea: education should be measured by what graduates can actually do, not merely what they have been taught.
For Nigeria’s engineering education system, this represents a genuine paradigm shift. It demands better procedures, rigorous documentation, and measurable criteria at every level, from universities to polytechnics to vocational training institutions. It is the kind of systemic overhaul that is easy to resist and hard to sustain. But it is also precisely what Nigeria’s admission into the international engineering accreditation family requires.
Engineering education is inseparable from national interest. In the midst of Nigeria’s evolving environmental, socio-economic, and geopolitical pressures such as climate change, migration, and economic instability, the quality of our engineers is not an academic question. It is a survival question.
The Architecture of Change: What Nigeria Has Built Since 2023
Nigeria’s journey toward Washington Accord signatory status gained provisional recognition in 2023, an achievement that earned acknowledgement from the office of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But provisional is not permanent. The real work begins after the applause.
The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, COREN, has been building the architecture of that permanent recognition methodically. In 2024, COREN signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Nigerian Universities Commission for joint accreditation. This led to the formation of the Engineering Accreditation Committee, EAC, an independent body tasked with accrediting engineering and TVET programmes across universities, polytechnics, and vocational institutions nationwide.
For Technical and Vocational Education and Training, TVET, the launch of the Nigerian Skills Qualifications Fund under the Nigerian Society of Engineers has tasked COREN to drive the Sector Skills Council for Engineering, SSC4E, while the Nigerian Academy of Engineering leads resource verification and accreditation assessments. These are not symbolic gestures. They are structural reforms.
Milestones in Our Story
One of the most significant and least reported aspects of Nigeria’s accreditation journey is its mentoring relationship with the Board of Engineers Malaysia. Malaysia walked this same road before us, and the International Engineering Alliance has paired Nigeria with BEM and the Pakistan Engineering Council to guide us through the process.
On 24th April 2025, COREN EAC hosted Engr. Professor Azlan Bin Abdul Aziz of BEM and Engr. Professor Saeedur-Rahman Khawaja of PEC for a mentoring session on Nigeria’s commitment to Washington Accord standards. In October 2025, Prof. Megat Johari Megat Mohd Noor, current Chair of the Dublin Accord, delivered technical sessions at a joint COREN NBTE workshop on the Sydney and Dublin Accords. In February 2026, Engr. Zairul Amri Zakaria of BEM arrived in Nigeria for a mentorship and assessment visit specifically related to the Sydney and Dublin Accord applications.
These visits matter because international accreditation is not a form you fill in. It is a relationship you build, one built on demonstrated evidence, peer review, and sustained commitment over time.
From University to the Construction Site: What Accreditation Looks Like on the Ground
In September 2025, COREN’s Registrar, Engr. Prof. Okorie Austine Uche, led a delegation to Bayero University Kano to observe OBE accreditation exercises for selected engineering programmes. This was a live field test of whether the new standards are actually being implemented where it counts, in lecture halls and laboratories.
At the same time, COREN’s 188th Ordinary Council Meeting in February 2026 approved a landmark international engagement strategy: formal applications for provisional status under the Sydney and Dublin Accords, alongside COREN’s application for full signatory status under the Washington Accord. These are not aspirations. They are filed applications with real deadlines and real consequences.
There is also a programme that speaks directly to the gap between classroom and construction site, the Engineering Residency Programme. Announced in July 2025 by COREN President Engr. Prof. Sadia A. Zubair, it mandates a compulsory one year post graduation residency for all engineering graduates. It is a revival of the old Supervised Industrial Training Scheme, now redesigned to build genuine practical competence. As someone who works daily alongside artisans and tradespeople, I understand viscerally why this matters. A degree without hands on mastery is a credential, not a competence.
What This Means for You, Especially If You Are Thinking of Leaving
I understand the japa impulse. I will not pretend otherwise. When the system feels broken, leaving feels rational. But here is what I want every young Nigerian engineer reading this to consider: the system is not standing still.
When Nigeria achieves full Washington Accord signatory status, a Nigerian engineering degree will carry the same international recognition as one from the UK, USA, Canada, or Australia. The Sydney and Dublin Accords will extend that recognition to engineering technologists and technicians respectively. This means mutual recognition of qualifications across member countries and the ability to work, be assessed, and be valued on the global stage without starting from zero.
That is not a small thing. That is the infrastructure of professional mobility, built not by leaving, but by raising standards at home until home itself becomes a launching pad rather than a cage.
A Final Word
Nigeria is doing the unglamorous work of institutional reform. COREN, NBTE, NUC, NSE, and NAE are building something that will outlast any individual career. The international engineering community is watching, mentoring, and beginning to believe.
As engineers, we do not build bridges by wishing for them. We build them beam by beam, inspection by inspection, standard by standard. Nigeria’s path to global engineering recognition is being built the same way.
I intend to be here when we finish.
…Sultan-Othman ‘Tobi Adekoya, BSc, BEng(Hons), MIET, GMNSE is
Speaker, Young Engineers, 15th Mechanical Engineering Distinguished Lecture, Nigerian Society of Engineers. Civil Engineer, Julius Berger Nigeria, Lagos Emergency Bridge Repair Works Project.