Prof Bart Nnaji, the founder and chairman of Geometric Power, Nigeria’s foremost integrated electricity firm, will deliver the 2026 graduation lecture of the Abia State University (ABSU) holding on March 26.
The disclosure was made today by Edise Ekong, the Senior Brand and Communication Manager of Aba Power, the distribution firm of the Geometric Power group, in a statement to newsmen in Aba, the Abia State commercial nerve centre.
The 2026 lecture is special because it will culminate in the 30th, 31st and 32nd graduation ceremonies.
“We couldn’t have got a better choice for the lecture”, Ekong quoted the ABSU Pro-Chancellor, The Rt Honorable Agwu A. Agwu, as saying after visiting Professor Nnaji at the Geometric Power corporate headquarters in the Osisioma Industrial Layout in Aba, accompanied by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ndukwe J. Okeudo, and other top university officials.
“Before setting up the Geometric Power group, Professor Nnaji had made a big name in the United States as one of the world’s three top scientists in the area of robotics and artificial intelligence, which enabled him to become the founding Director of the Centre for e-Design of the United States National Science Foundation, leading five universities recognized as centres of excellence for e-Design research”.
The ABSU Vice Chancellor expressed delight that “Nnaji chose to lead the over $800m Aba Integrated Power Project in Aba, today the biggest single private sector investment in the Southeast, when he could have made the investment in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ogun State, or even his home state of Enugu.
“Indeed, the whole nation is delighted that the electricity arrangement in nine of the 17 local government areas in Abia State serviced by Aba Power has become the standard by which other 11 electricity distribution companies in Nigeria are judged, and the Federal Government is studying the Geometric Power business model to guide it in the comprehensive development of the Nigerian power sector”.
Professor Nnaji, 69, served as the Nigerian Minister of Science and Technology when he was 37 in 1993, and later returned to the federal cabinet in 2011 as the Minister of Power.
“His 13-month leadership of the Ministry of Power remains the golden era in the history of Nigeria’s electricity development”, according to Rumundaka Wonodi, the Yale University-trained first chief executive of the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company plc, popularly known as the Bulk Trader.
“Prof Nnaji is not one of those world-class academics with heads in the cloud but no feet on the ground, as he is good at theory and research as he is at praxis or practice”.
