Is It True That ABU Is Developing Secret Nuclear Weapon?

How true is the rumour that the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria is developing a secret nuclear weapon for Nigeria?

If you are amongst those who have been turning over this rhetorical question, not knowing where to pitch your tent of belief, here now is the answer you need?

It is coming from the Director of Public Affairs Directorate of the university, Malam Auwalu Umar. He has dismissed as false, assertion as claimed in a social media video, that the university was developing a secret nuclear weapon

This he did in statement issued on Saturday in Zaria, a report in the NAN has said.

It quotes the director as describing the viral video as intended at misinforming and misleading the public about Nigeria’s peaceful nuclear energy programme.

According to him, the video falsely claimed that Nigerian scientists in the 1980s secretly enriched weapons-grade uranium in Kaduna and that ABU researchers obtained centrifugal equipment from the AQ Khan network in Pakistan.

Describing the information as baseless, unfounded and unsubstantiated, Umar said most of the ABU scientists at the Centre for Energy Research and Training (CERT) were still undergoing training abroad as at 1980s and could not have participated in uranium enrichment.

In addition to not having any connection with the AQ Khan network, he added that the university had never received any equipment for the construction of a centrifuge or nuclear device.

He added that by 1987, the only nuclear facility at the university was a 14 MeV Neutron Generator, which became operational in 1988.

“Nigeria’s first nuclear reactor (NIRR-1) was established much later in 1996 under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Technical Cooperation Programme and commissioned in 2004,” he said.

“The Centre for Energy Research and Training, established in 1976, operates in collaboration with the IAEA and international partners from the US, Russia, and China.”

Asserting that the centre had never embarked on the development of any secret nuclear weapon programme, he added:

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“ABU has always pursued peaceful applications of nuclear science and technology for national development.

“ABU’s founder, Sir Ahmadu Bello, had demonstrated early interest in peaceful atomic research following his visit to the Museum of Atomic Energy at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the U. in 1960, two years before ABU was established.

“The management, therefore, restated its commitment to advancing science and technology for the benefit of humanity and to upholding Nigeria’s international obligations on the peaceful use of nuclear energy,” he said.