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Nigeria: Our Expressways Have No Foundations- Meshida, Nlng Science Prize Winner

Kunle Adekoya

5 July 2008

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interview

Byany standard, the experience of Dr. Ebenezer Ajibola Meshida is a sermon in humility, perseverance, endurance, and obedience to elders, one value held high by many Nigerians. Meshida had graduated with a BA in Geography in the 60s, and ordinarily should have gone to make a good career in the civil service or elsewhere, but his elder brother, a soil scientist, intervened.

The older Meshida, now a grand old man who lives in Ireland where he was educated, insisted that his junior sibling should also be a soil scientist, and further insisted that, after the BA (Hons) in Geography, the younger Meshida should re-enrol for admission to study soil science and geology, and it did not matter to him that his junior sibling was an arts person who would find a quantitative discipline like that a hard nut to crack. But obey he must, so he dumped his BA and re-enrolled as a freshman to study geology and soil engineering.

As Meshida himself acknowledged,"it was a rough road, very rough road. So, I entered prelim-science physics, chemistry, and it was like a nightmare.... I had a friend who retired as a professor of physics. He was coming to my house to teach me mathematics and brought me to the level acceptable to the department."

It is doubtful if any of today's youths would take such an instruction from an older sibling. However, all that is in the not-so-distant past, and thanks to the local equivalent of the Nobel prize, Dr. Meshida is now recognized for the product of 26 years of tedious research, during which colleagues sniggered at him for wanting to do something that had not been done before.

The product of his research efforts into soil foundation for roads, which he called LATERALITE fetched him this year's NLNG Science Prize. In this interview below, Meshida recalls the days when he started, his doggedness and varied experience, and how it can be used to make roads that will not fail for the nation. Going his experience, most of our expressways have no foundations, and roads that are without foundations fail easily, after the first rains. Excerpts:

CONGRATULATIONS on winning this award. How exactly do you feel and how has the journey in academia been?

Well, I feel very much excited by the winning and I will say, really that practically I was confused at the beginning because it was like a peak of achievement of a lifetime, and it came most unexpectedly.

Naturally, I was jolted, but thank God, positively. And I've been excited. I've been extremely happy and grateful to the unknown judges, because I don't know them and they don't know me either. So, I'm very grateful to them for giving me the award.

Let's know you personally, where were you born, your academic career, growing up and things like that?

I come from Ita-Ogbolu, near Akure. My father was a catechist of the Anglican Church and he worked all his life in Ekitiland. So, I grew up in Ekitiland; I was born in Erijiyan-Ekiti. I first schooled at Ilawe-Ekiti, then we moved to Ado-Ekiti, where I attended Emmanuel School, Ado-Ekiti. I moved to Akure in 1954, St. Thomas School, and entered secondary school, Oyemekun Grammar School in 1957, then got school certificate in 1961, and then entered Christ's School, Ado-Ekiti for. HSC in 1962. Then I entered the University of Ibadan in 1964. All along, I was an arts student - History, English, Geography.

Then I had a BA in Geography and then by the influence of my elder brother's persuasion, he sent me back to school to study prelim-science. That was after the degree to have a B.Sc in Geology. It was a rough road, very rough road. So, I entered prelim-science; physics, chemistry, and it was like a nightmare. But somehow like a miracle again, I was admitted to the B.Sc class.

What was his motivation for that, what was his reason?

Well, my brother's reason was that I should join him as a soil-engineer; he is a soil engineer. He had his own degree since 1960, from Belfast, in Ireland. So, he came back, paid my feels in secondary school. And then he was trying to make me into a geologist, so that I can be relevant in his works as a foundation engineer. He succeeded because after my geology, he sent me back to school again, in Lagos here, in the civil engineering department to study soil mechanics and foundation engineering. I had a "P"in mathematics in school certificate.

How did you cope?

Again, the roughest road ever because I had a friend who retired as a professor of physics. He was coming to my house to teach me mathematics and brought me to the level acceptable to the department here. So, that's my rough way in academic life. It was very tedious.

What you have just described was tedium in living colour. You mean, after a BA, you dumped it and started all over again when you would have joined your mates in the civil service?

Yes, I started all over. I would have become a principal in my school, everybody was laughing at me. They said, 'ok, leave him. When he fails he will know the implication of what he is doing?'

This brother of yours, is he still around?

He is still around but he is elderly now. He lives in Ireland now.

Are you from the same parents?

Same father, mother. He is the first born of the family. I'm the number four.

So he had much authority on you?

So, much authority, so much authority.

He was like a surrogate father?

In fact, he was. He was somebody just to take instructions from. Just let him talk and that's it. Then you go on and do whatever it is he said. Just carry on.

How is your own personal family life?

I thank God I have a very nice family. My wife is very understanding; she is a radiographer but she is working right now in a London hospital as radiographer. When she retired from LUTH, instead of just wasting around (she has British qualification), so she got a job in London. We have six children; three boys, three girls. They are doing very well. They are all graduated now. Everybody is on his or her own. Everybody is doing well, we are a very happy family.

When did the first idea about this particular line of research start?

It is a fairly long story but I will make it short. When I was working with my elder brother as geologist, he assigned me to join the British firm that designed the Lagos-Ibadan expressway in soil testing. His company was given the contract. So, he assigned me to go and do the soil testing for the British firm.

So, I knew that one of the major problems the engineers were talking about, they were not talking to me but they were discussing it among themselves, the way water was destabilizing laterite soil. After finishing the road, water will just destabilize it, soften it and everything will just crack. So, I heard the statement. Again, I was seconded to investigate soils on the Calabar-Itu-Ikot-Ekpene highway in 1973. So, the American engineer was one Mr Wilson of Urban Engineers of Michigan.

He was chatting with me on where exactly to find construction materials in that area. He said the laterite soils will easily get dissolved with water dissolution. I said Odukpani area, north of Calabar is a limestone area. I said maybe we can find something in limestone area if he don't want use the laterite soils.

So, I actually investigated limestone area for him. But with those problems, and as a geologist, I thought I should even try to study something. Then after my brief study at Unilag civil engineering, I now went to Ife as a research student to do the M.Sc in engineering geology. So, that was how I came about playing with laterite.

I discussed with my professor then, the popular Professor Adegoke who is now a consultant to oil companies. He allowed me to use laterite soil for my M.Sc and even Ph.D. Then my mind went back to finding a solution for this problem of water dissolution. And you know, all our roads are suffering from this thing. No matter what you do, one rainfall will be enough to destabilize the road. So, I decided to find and understand the chemistry of laterite. What can we do to counter the effect of water? The road in doing that has been rough and tough.

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