Ngozi Adeleke is a seasoned engineer and strategic leader with over two decades of experience in the energy sector. Her career spans impactful roles at Shell Plc, both locally and internationally, and currently at Renaissance Africa Energy Company where she serves as Pipelines Asset Manager. In this interview with NGOZI OKPALAKUNE, she spoke on pipeline vandalism’s impact on Nigeria’s economy. She shared insight on mitigating the issue. Also, she highlighted the state of women in STEM in Nigeria and ways to enhance their participation. Excerpts.
How does pipeline vandalism and illegal tapping affect Nigeria’s economic growth and energy security and what strategies can be implemented to mitigate these challenges?
Pipeline vandalism and illegal tapping of our lines to steal crude oil pose one of the most severe threats to our energy security and Nigeria’s economic stability at large.
This menace drains our national revenue at a catastrophic level. In Q1 2022, for example, it was in the news reports that Nigeria was losing 90 percent of daily production through the TNP, before it got to the Terminal, as a result of the activities of the vandals and crude oil thieves. These includes, the frequent disruption to crude and gas supplies, forcing the shutdown of key pipeline networks.
These losses directly weaken government revenue for infrastructure, education, and healthcare, and reduce foreign exchange earnings which are critical to stabilising the naira.
Operationally, it severely affected the reliability of crude supply, degraded the integrity of hydrocarbon-bearing pipelines by accelerating corrosion and further exposed work crews and host communities to safety risks that should not have been in play in the first place.
These frequent outages also meant that power generation plants and industries that relied on domestic gas supply had their operations disrupted, which hampered the national strategy on energy security.
It is these disruptions that made investors wary of putting in their money in the sector and the multiplier effect of those investments were missed at the time.
So, pipeline vandalism and crude theft are not just operational problems but are also economic and national security problems that had to be addressed.
Curbing pipeline vandalism, and the menace of crude oil theft, requires a unified front of the government, operators, and host communities. This is what we have deployed in Renaissance operations, and we are now seeing the gains in increased availability and stability on the pipeline networks. I will share based on what we have done. First, both the government and operators adopted an intelligence driven security framework, combining government security enforcement capabilities with the use of drones in real time monitoring for faster detection and response.
Secondly, it was important that we embraced a community centric protection model as the most important vehicle for sustained gains, when local communities see pipelines as shared assets rather than “government infrastructure”, the incentive shifts from sabotage to co-operation.
Thirdly, stronger legal deterrents, including special prosecution courts for energy infrastructure offences, have been set up to ensure that apprehended vandals face swift prosecution.
Finally, we adopted a joint transparency framework, where government agencies and operators share real-time analytics on breaches and recovery. These have helped us to continuously refine our strategy and improve accountability across the security architecture and its stakeholders.
As an advocate of innovation, what is driving your passion for reshaping the pipeline narrative in STEM space?
What drives my passion is the belief that pipeline engineering is not just an operations function, it is a strategic enabler of national development. Our oil and gas pipelines sit at the heart of energy security, industrialisation, and economic stability.
Our role is to safely evacuate hydrocarbons to the various points of sales in a way that ensures that the lines would not fail but maintain their capacities for the short and long term.
Yet, for decades, the narrative around pipelines in Nigeria has been dominated by vandalism, losses, and environmental challenges. When I moved into the pipelines space, I observed this and realised that the professional and deeply technical work we carry out on corrosion management and general asset integrity maintenance was overshadowed by the emergency response work to bring back production when it is hit by vandals.
I am therefore committed to reshaping this narrative by showcasing innovation, technology, and the transformative potential of engineering in the pipelines space.
When young people, especially women, see that the engineering framework around pipelines operations involves the use of drones, digital twins, AI-driven monitoring, sustainable materials, and advanced risk modeling, it reframes the entire discipline. It creates a mental shift to see the pipelines engineering as a space for creativity, problem solving, and nation building, not just carbon steel pipes and valves.
My passion comes from wanting the next generation to view pipeline’s discipline as a cutting-edge STEM field that offers impact, relevance, and global opportunities.
In the world as we know it today, when we make innovation the centre piece, we create pride, we attract talent, and we build the future.
How would you describe the present state of women in STEM in Nigeria and in what ways do you think it can be enhanced?
Women in STEM in Nigeria are breaking barriers, but the ecosystem is still evolving. We see brilliant female engineers, scientists, and technologists doing exceptional work in energy, manufacturing, digital technology, academia, and research. Yet, women remain underrepresented, particularly in leadership roles and field-intensive engineering domains. Three things are essential to improve this: First, we must introduce girls to STEM at a young age through hands-on learning, role models, robotics clubs, coding labs, and engineering camps, because early confidence leads to long term interest.
Also, organisations should enable fair access to training, field deployments, critical assignments, leadership development programmes, and targeted promotions. Women must not be overlooked in high impact technical roles.
Finally, when women see other females succeeding as CEOs, asset managers, general managers, senior engineers, and project leaders, they are inspired to aim for higher ambitions and break the proverbial glass ceilings.
Female networks like Women in Engineering (WIEN) and APWEN, help to build confidence, skills, create advocacy platforms and opportunities that we may find difficult to access as individuals.
Overall, the state of women in STEM is promising but requires a deliberate structure, supportive policies, and cultural reinforcement to unlock its full potential
What was a significant challenge in your engineering career and how were you able to navigate?
I have been fortunate not to have “significant challenges” in my career but challenges I have faced are no more different from what my male colleagues have faced: Running complex integrated oil and gas plants, commissioning projects and bringing them to steady state operations are some examples but a common denominator have been surmounting the initial gender-based scepticism that often greeted my assumption of a leadership role and then eventually gaining the respect of my team once they realised that I was capable of delivering on the job that was set before me.
How do you mentor young girls and women who are interested in pursuing engineering careers?
A key platform I created as President of the Women in Renaissance for the last three years is the “Big Sister Coaching” where we invite young girls from secondary and tertiary institutions to our offices. I created a platform for women in our organisation to connect with them and hold a series of sessions on visibility, confidence, capability, and opportunity.
We bring them into our offices to show them that we were once like them but with the right mindset and focus they can become like us in the near future. We believe that when they can “see it,” they can “be it”. In those coaching sessions, we use storytelling, and honest conversations about challenges, to help them build the self-belief needed to thrive in male-dominated environments.
For young women in my organisation, I hold monthly collaboration sessions which are platforms for leadership development, public speaking, and career planning. This helps us ensure that our women have the hard and soft skills needed to excel. I also advocate for women to get field exposure, shadowing roles, stretch assignments, and visibility with senior leaders. Sponsorship is often more powerful than mentorship, and I push for both in my organisation.
What do you consider a major challenge facing women engineers in Nigeria, and what is the solution?
A key challenge female engineers face is unequal access to career defining technical and leadership opportunities, particularly in field operations where competencies are built and visibility is earned. What does this mean? What we see is that cultural biases and structural barriers often limit their participation in projects that can accelerate their career progression. Solving this requires a shift on multiple fronts: organisations must provide inclusive policies and safe field infrastructure (this can be as simple as creating female-friendly accommodation and toilets in field locations); leaders must actively sponsor women into high impact technical roles, not only mentoring them; and women themselves should have access to professional networks, technical up skilling, and leadership development programmes. Another simple but really powerful medium is the creation of female-focused employee resource groups like the Women in Renaissance (WiRe) that serve as advocacy mediums to negotiate equitable outcomes. When the entire ecosystem is aligned, policy, leadership, community, and talent, the pathway for women engineers becomes clearer, stronger, and more equitable.
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