A DISTINGUISHED space systems engineer and high level university administrator, has enjoined Nigerians to pay less attention to Detractors and learn more about the strides scientists and engineers In the country are making, particularly at institutions like Kwara State University (KWASU) in Ilorin.

Professor Leo Daniel, Provost, College of Engineering and Technology, told The Guardian, via telephone, that the much-publicised Memorandum of understanding (MOU) which KWASU recently signed with the Nigeria Air Force (NAF) "was an important step forward, but hardly unique".

The MOU calls for collaboration in areas such as the sharing of Wind tunnel data, training in aircraft maintenance, student exchange programmes, KWASU use of model aircraft parts and a de-commissioned aircraft from NAF, as well as access to its flight simulator, for instructional purposes.

But the Provost stressed: "The signing was simply the Consummation of a relationship that had long been evolving. NAF was already working with us. Then too, we also have MOUs with other entities, including a South Korean institute and the Georgia Institute of Technology, in the U.S.A".

Daniel, who is also professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said most Nigerians would be "taken aback" by what KWASU is doing, "because all they hear is how the country 'isn't working. Nobody ever tells people we're teaching courses in Space Systems Design and Operation and Aircraft Design!"

A former Visiting Professor at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T,), Daniel specialises in 'composite systems' and was among the consulting engineers during the development of the powerful Ariane V rocket-currently the workhorse of the European Space Agency.

"When I joined KWASU in 2011," he recalled, "I introduced Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering. That, in itself, was an innovation. It was new in Nigeria. But we went further and made Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLV) and Intelligent Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (IUAV) the focus of our research".