On Saturday, October 7, 2023, Gombe State University awarded an honorary degree to Abdullahi Usman Hadi, popularly known as Engineer Hadi, a self-taught inventor from Gombe State, Northeast Nigeria.
Despite not receiving any formal education, Hadi has invented 78 electrical and electronic products, including a water stove and a free energy generator.
His inventions prompted Gombe State University to employ him as a lecturer, where he taught entrepreneurship classes for students at the university.
Engineer Hadi spoke with the Voice of Nigeria’s Correspondent in Gombe, Rebecca Mu’azu, about how and when it all began.
Born in 1953, Engineer Hadi is gradually becoming a household name in Gombe and Nigeria as his products are now being sought after from within and outside Gombe State.
The honorary Degree
Hadi said Gombe State University gave him an honorary doctorate after conducting a deep analysis of his discoveries.
The university discovered that all 78 electronics and gadgets he invented, dating back from 1971 up to 2023, were done by him, and this propelled the university to employ him as a lecturer of electrical/electronics, general electronics, and satellite installation.
Educational Background
Engineer Hadi has never gone through any Western education but obtained an education in Qur’anic Studies, which he completed and graduated from when he was just 12 years old.
Now he can read science books written in English because of his assertiveness and insistence on self-development. This he did through friends and acquaintances.
“I do conduct lectures in English, and I also speak English, because, in the science profession and electronic innovation, there is no way one can function without reading in English,” Hadi said.
He said that because times had changed and one had to change with it, one could not function without Western education, which meant reading books in English.
According to him, with technological advancement, things have metamorphosed from analogue to soft touch, then to digital, and now to high definition.
Dr. Hadi said the importance of knowing the English language was in the names of the gadgets and their functions. “Example is with a transistor, what is it and what are its functions? For electrolyte capacitors and many electronic gadgets, it is a must for you to know their components and their functions and also identify whether they are dead or functioning. I have studied Western education at home as well as through friends and acquaintances. I have read so many science books beyond count, such as books by Galilei-Galileo, Michael Faraday, and Guglielmo Marconi, who invented the wireless transmitter. All of them were not in Hausa but in English.”
He explained that he developed himself into an innovative scientist through the conduct of research on new words and their functions or usage in other fields.
“So, through that, I was taught, and I learned and understood whatever text I read in English and what it was intended for.”
Teaching in the Gombe State University
Dr. Hadi began teaching at Gombe State University in 2022, after the water stove he invented won him an award for Best Inventor in Abuja, and the Vice Chancellor, Professor Aliyu Usman El-Nafaty, considered him for employment.
He was afterwards invited for an interview and screening of one of his inventions, and he was offered an appointment as a lecturer in the Entrepreneurship section of the university.
According to Hadi, what qualified him to become a full-time lecturer at the university was the training of 30 students within six months, with ten students each in electronics, electrical, and satellite installation.
Brief Time at Bayero University, Kano (Northwest Nigeria)
In 1992, Dr. Hadi had a brief experience teaching at Bayero University Kano in Northwest Nigeria, where a lecturer discovered him and gave him a temporary teaching job for students in the field of electronics. That became possible after a man who brought a gadget for him to repair at his workshop discovered his talent and connected him to a lecturer in the institution, where he taught electronics.
“One day, a man who brought work to me told me that he had a friend in BUK who was teaching this field, electronics and that he was going to introduce us so that we both could learn from each other. That was how we were introduced and he started coming to my workshop. One day he told me that he told the students that he was bringing someone who had never been to any school or had a primary school certificate, yet he could do more than someone who had studied electronics at the university.”
One of His Inventions (Water Stove)
According to Dr. Hadi, the idea to develop a water stove came from his three-year thorough research on the components of water, such as why there was no lightning and thunder in the dry season but a lot of it in the rainy season. He concluded that both thunder and lightning were components of water, and as such, the absence of water in the clouds meant there wouldn’t be thunder and lightning in them as well, and this led him to begin the research on how to extract these and use them.
“If thunder and lightning are found in water, it means wherever there is water, whether in the stream, pot, bottle, or any other water, there must be components of lightning,” said Dr. Hadi.
The research went on for three years before he was able to achieve this vision, after which the fire was tested in his house and has been in use for months now.
Engineer Hadi gave an insight into how the energy component of just one sachet of water could be used for three days without the level dropping, which was then thrown away and replaced with a fresh one.
“I discovered that there is an oxygen atom, electro in water. In essence, it is with atoms and electrons that electricity is generated. Because of that, if the pressure of water is up to 60 pounds per second, it will produce this energy,” said Dr. Hadi.
Collaborations with Foreign Companies
Lots of companies from China and Australia have approached him in Abuja after the exhibition, where he got the award, but he has not accepted any of the proposals yet for some reasons best known to him.
He also explained that he had not gone commercial with the products yet because of past experiences where people stole his work by reproducing and selling it without any benefit to it, thereby rendering his hard work useless to him.
“Each time I invent anything and produce like 20 and take it to the market for sale to determine its cost before the products have finished selling, I will discover about 50 to 100 of it in the market. Some people will buy one and dismantle it to know how it was constructed, and then they will construct their own, thereby rendering all my research, resources, time and hard work waste and non-beneficial to me,” said Dr. Hadi.
He hopes to get a patent security license so that when someone tried to dismantle it to know the components, he would end up destroying the product instead.
Construction of a Helicopter
Dr. Hadi once invented a helicopter.
In 1971, his background as a mechanic of the scooter Vespa motivated him to begin thinking of what to do to make a difference in society, so in 1972, he researched how to construct a helicopter and all vehicles that run on the ground before being lifted into the sky.
“I then understood the importance of the fan in the plane, which rotates to release air into the ground, which in turn forces the weight of the plane to be lifted,” Engineer Hadi explained.
Within seven months, he constructed his helicopter and test-ran it with his friend Danladi Bille, but after going around Gombe in the full glare of everyone, they could not land properly because the switch he constructed for landing failed them. The helicopter crash-landed into a neighbour’s compound, forcing him to halt further efforts to construct helicopters by completely switching to the construction of electronics.
The invention of the System Control
Dr. Hadi displayed a console-like gadget with a television screen on it, which he said was not a television but a system control with up to 111 functions, including the storing of power from the electricity company, which is then distributed to other places that need it.
The system control is also the receiver and satellite at the same time, despite not having a receiver, DVD, or television.
He explained that what appears to be a television is not in the true sense of a TV but a fabricated piece of glass from his window, which he used to display visuals and sounds.
“We also constructed an amplifier, with which we magnify sounds. The screen is to display visuals. There is also the control with 111 switches for the fan and any other electronics on this, including direct current and DC. Even when there is a power outage, I will still have power from the DC before the power is restored. But all through, I will have constant power for all the work I need to do,” Dr. Hadi said.
Free Energy Generator
Engineer Hadi constructed the Free Energy Generator, his latest invention in 2023, which was driven by his passion for boosting power in the country.
He used a 7.5KW alternator, a three-horsepower electric motor, and the wheels of a lister machine to produce electricity.
“It is the alternator that will generate electricity and, at the same time, turn the motor to circulate nonstop. That way it will operate without engine, electricity, water, solar or batteries, but will continue to operate nonstop,” Engineer Hadi said
So far, he has constructed three of the free energy generators and sold them to people in Yola, Kano, and Abuja (all in northern Nigeria), while also working to construct more for more people.
Private radio station
In 1972, Engineer Hadi founded a radio station in Gombe State that had expanded to employ 33 people by the year 1980.
Transfer of Knowledge
Dr. Hadi confirmed that his children have inherited his skills, which he has instilled in them since their early education.
“I don’t allow them to play around anyhow. They are always in my workshop and by the time they finish secondary school, they will have learned all that I have invented. All of them now have their ventures, where they go to and conduct their businesses,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Hadi has reiterated that he wouldn’t want to die with the talent and knowledge God gave him and, as such, would want to teach others to acquire it, which had made him always leave behind a local diagram for whoever was interested to learn from.
He teaches the skill via phone (online training) by taking the individual through a step-by-step process of construction, which is cost-effective.
It is interesting to note that he has a company that sells the products he invented, except the water stove, because he prevents his hard work from being wasted or stolen, making him wait till he acquires a patent for the product as a defence mechanism or security.
“It is my greatest challenge. I put that on hold until I could get its patent. This will make it impossible for anyone trying or attempting to remove the seal from the air filter to steal my work, such that when one tries to dismantle the item, it will be destroyed in the process instead and one will not understand how it is made.
“There are countries that we are in talks with, like China, and some companies and when I get a favourable price, I am willing to sell the technology and concentrate on innovating new things,” he said.
His Wish
More than anything, Dr. Hadi wishes to establish manufacturing companies where people would be employed because, at present, he is responsible for the construction of every item he uses in his innovations.
“My work is a one-man show. I am the mechanic, the carpenter, the welder and the work becomes tedious, such that it takes a longer time for one product to be produced. However, if a manufacturing company (industry) is established, there are different sections of work and workers who produce different materials, such as welders, as well as others. That way, production will be fast and in no time, there will be massive production of the product.“
Dr Hadi has advised people not to consider age as a hindrance to acquiring knowledge, noting that one of the greatest hindrances to learning is a lack of confidence.
“Once a person learning gets scared that the process is difficult, he will never learn. It means you have concluded in your heart that you cannot do it. It also means that if the whole town gathered to help you, you would never know it.
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