The British government has honoured a Nigerian-born, Victor Osagie for employing his expertise to assist in the mass production of enough ventilators in the fight against Coronavirus.
A commendation letter from the cabinet office of the United Kingdom and jointly endorsed by all partners, including Ford and Airbus, commended Osagie for his role in the just concluded ventilator challenge project, which was an initiative of the cabinet office.
“Thank you for your invaluable contribution to our ventilator challenge UK team. As we battled together to save lives threatened by Covid-19 your energy, ingenuity and camaraderie made a tremendous difference. You are a shining example of the best UK has to offer,” the office said.
Osagie ‘s team delivered the quality control system that rapidly converted disused warehouses into assembly lines. His team converted Ford Motors vehicle production lines and Airbus Aircraft production lines into ventilator production lines. They produced over 14,000 ventilators in 90 days. This boosted the NHS ventilator capacity from less than 9000 pre-COVID19 era to the over 25000 capacity in July 2020.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson noted that the ventilator challenge proved how much Britain can achieve when confronted with difficult problems.
Reacting to the development, a former director with the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Gabriel Ehilebo, said Osagie would be value added if Nigeria could get him and his like to work with the economic sustainability committee to be able to robustly respond to the challenges posed by the COVID19 pandemic.
