President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday 4th August, 2026 commissioned Africa’s first renewable energy college, the Barefoot Renewable Energy College (BARECKS), and a Green Hydrogen Research and Demonstration Pilot Plant in Osara, Kogi State, declaring that Nigeria has assumed the position of pacesetter in renewable energy capacity development across the continent.
Vice President Kashim Shettima performed the commissioning on behalf of the President at the Confluence University of Science and Technology. He conveyed Tinubu’s satisfaction with the project and recalled the President’s belief that “a government is measured by the industries it plants and by the households those industries feed.”
Tinubu described the difficulty confronting Nigeria, a country “abundantly endowed with sunlight, wind, biomass and water” as “converting its endowment into megawatts, and megawatts into jobs.” That challenge, he said, will now be addressed by the new college.
“This is the first institution of its kind on the African continent, modelled on the celebrated vocational colleges of India that turned unlettered grandmothers into solar engineers,” the President stated through his deputy. “If that method could light the villages of Rajasthan, it can light the settlements of Kogi, Ondo and Cross River. Nigeria assumes, from today, the position of pacesetter in renewable energy capacity development across Africa.”
He noted that the college was completed in just two years. “Two years ago, we stood on this ground for the groundbreaking of this institution, with red earth underfoot and the ambition of a few determined Nigerians for company. Today, we stand before a world-class edifice, completed to international standards.”
The institution is designed as a vocational and technical college to close what Tinubu called “the widest gap in Africa’s energy transition” the shortage of competent technical manpower. “Our continent has never suffered a deficit of intention. We have suffered the scarcity of hands trained to execute them,” he said. Graduates will earn internationally recognised certificates of proficiency, qualifying them for employment, entrepreneurship and global competition. “A certificate issued in Osara must one day command respect in Nairobi and in Frankfurt.”
Tinubu called on development partners, the private sector, international organisations and research institutions to collaborate with the college, assuring that Nigeria is prepared to host and lead such efforts. He praised the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, the Director-General of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, and Kogi State Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo for their roles in realising the project.
Governor Ododo said the inauguration signals Nigeria’s commitment to sustainable development through human capital investment and will strengthen the energy sector while attracting investment and creating community opportunities. He described the initiative as justification for continued support for the Tinubu administration.
Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Dr. Kingsley Udeh called the project a major investment in human capital and job creation, linking it to Nigeria’s ambition of becoming a one-trillion-dollar economy. He urged pioneer trainees to uphold high technical and ethical standards.
Energy Commission of Nigeria Director-General Dr. Mustapha Abdullahi said the college is the first of its kind in Nigeria and is equipped with smart classrooms, battery energy laboratories, a mini-grid simulation centre, energy efficiency laboratories and other modern facilities. It will produce skilled professionals in renewable energy research and development in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda.
The Ohinoyi of Ebiraland, Dr. Ahmed Tijjani Anaje, welcomed the college’s potential to equip young people with technical skills for national development and thanked the federal government for siting it in Kogi State.
