Gbenga Rasheed Ajenifuja Honoured with the NITA Award for Most Innovative Oil & Gas Reliability Engineer of the Year

By Ugo Aliogo

In a moment that affirmed the rising global currency of Nigerian engineering excellence, Gbenga Rasheed Ajenifuja has been honoured with the Nigeria Innovation and Technology Award (NITA) for Most Innovative Oil & Gas Reliability Engineer of the Year, a recognition that does not merely celebrate a career, but validates a decade-long commitment to precision, resilience, and transformative thinking in one of the world’s most demanding industrial sectors.

Few in Nigeria’s engineering community have pursued mastery with the kind of deliberate urgency that defines Gbenga Rasheed Ajenifuja. Armed with a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Olabisi Onabanjo University and currently completing a Master of Science in Engineering Technology at Western Illinois University in the United States, he represents a class of Nigerian engineers who are as rigorous in the classroom as they are in the field. His academic foundation is not ornamental; it is the bedrock upon which every professional achievement has been constructed.

Gbenga Rasheed Ajenifuja, currently serving at Dangote’s refinery one of Africa’s most ambitious industrial undertakings, stands at the heart of this recognition . Between being employed in June 2021 to date he serves as a Reliability and Point Inspection Engineer, and his results are not incidental; they are engineered. He has implemented Cox Regression-based reliability measures that strengthened product quality and compliance with international industry standards. He spearheads cross-functional non-destructive testing programmes that identifies and neutralises latent manufacturing defects before they could cascade into costly failures. Most compellingly, he has deployed advanced statistical failure analysis to detect failure trends and put in place regression-based preventive systems. In the world of large-scale oil and gas infrastructure, such interventions are not abstract; they protect assets worth billions, protect lives, and protect the integrity of the entire supply chain.

Before his current tenure at Dangote, Gbenga Rasheed Ajenifuja had already demonstrated a rare instinct for operational innovation. At Bioresource Institute, where he served as Maintenance Engineer and Production Technician from February 2020 to May 2021, he reduced machine downtime by a remarkable 35% through the implementation of a Kanban-based lean inventory control system, ensuring that critical spare parts were perpetually available and reactive maintenance delays became a thing of the past. He also achieved a 20% reduction in product defects through meticulous calibration of sealant pressure to within ±0.02 bar tolerance and blade cutting precision to ±0.5 mm variance. These are not estimates. They are the kind of measurable, replicable results that separate genuine engineers from ceremonial ones.

Earlier, as a Site Engineer at DeeHS Electrical Company, he managed full-lifecycle electrical installation projects, coordinating architects, contractors, and vendors to deliver complex commercial and industrial electrical systems on time and within budget, establishing early in his career the project leadership instincts that would serve him in far larger arenas.

Speaking exclusively to our correspondent on receiving the honour, Gbenga Rasheed Ajenifuja was visibly moved yet characteristically composed. “This award means everything to me,” he said, his voice carrying the quiet conviction of a man who has long worked in rooms where results speak louder than words. “I did not set out to win awards. I set out to solve problems, real problems that affect real systems and real people. But to have this work recognised at a national level, and to carry Nigeria’s name into these conversations on a global stage, fills me with a joy I cannot fully express. It tells me that when you do the work with integrity and precision, the recognition will find you.”
He also spoke pointedly about his aspirations. “I hope younger Nigerian engineers see this and understand that excellence does not require you to leave Nigeria to be seen. It requires you to show up, to be rigorous, and to care about the quality of what you put into the world. That is what I have tried to do at every stage of my career, and I will continue to do so.”

The NITA Award for Most Innovative Oil & Gas Reliability Engineer of the Year could not have found a more deserving recipient. Gbenga Rasheed Ajenifuja has not merely participated in Nigeria’s engineering story; he has helped write some of its most consequential pages. As he advances his graduate studies in the United States and continues to build a body of work that bridges continents, industries, and disciplines, this recognition serves as both a verdict on what he has already accomplished and a signal of what is unmistakably still to come.