Akintunde Ibitayo Akinwande is a Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. Professor Akinwande received a B.Sc. (1978) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Ife, Nigeria, a MS (1981) and Ph.D. (1986) in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, California.
Professor Akinwande joined Honeywell Inc. in 1986 where he initially conducted research on GaAs Complementary FET technology for very high speed and low power signal processing. He later joined the Si Microstructures group where he conducted research on pressure sensors, accelerometers, thin-film field emission and display devices.
Professor Akinwande joined MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) in January 1995 where his research focuses on micro-fabrication and electronic devices with particular emphasis on smart sensors and actuators, intelligent displays, large area electronics (macro-electronics), field emission & field ionization devices, mass spectrometry and electric propulsion.
Prof. Akinwande is a recipient of the 1996 National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award. He has served a number of technical program committees for various conferences, including the Device Research Conference, the International Electron Devices Meeting, the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, the International Display Research Conference and the International Vacuum Microelectronics Conference.
Professor Akinwande holds numerous patents in MEMS, Electronics on Flexible Substrates, Display technologies and has authored more than 100 journal publications. He was a visiting professor at the Cambridge University Engineering Department and an Overseas Fellow of Churchill College in 2002-2003. He is a current member of the IEEE Nanotechnology Council.
Barely 48 hours after a former deputy governor of Plateau State, Mrs. Pauline Tallen, turned down her ambassadorial nomination citing lack of consultation, Mr. Akintunde Akinwande has also rejected President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointment to head National Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC.
In a list of nominees circulated by the committee, it was only Akinwade’s column that records of date of birth, qualification, specialization, experience and certificate of National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, were missing. The other six nominees provided the information to the committee for perusal and the vital information would have been a prelude to Akinwande’s screening and other nominees for the commission.
Though there were official reasons for the rejection, however, it was gathered that the nominee might have turned down the appointment because he was not consulted before the appointment was made.
Chairman of the Committee, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, said there was no way the screening could go on in the absence of the chairman designate, adding that the screening had been put on hold indefinitely until the President communicated to the Senate.
Abaribe who noted that the privatization of the electricity sector was meant to improve the sector, said the inauguration of the board of NERC was key to solving the problems of the sector. “Regrettably, when members of the committee assembled to screen the nominees made by President Buhari, we were told that the chairman designate was unavoidably absent.
‘’The Presidential liaison who brought the nominees informed us that the chairman was unavoidably absent,” he said. Abaribe said since the nomination was made over three months ago, the Presidency should have known whether the chairman-designate would attend the screening or not. “The commission is vital and cannot function without a chairman,’’ Abaribe stated emphatically. Abaribe who assured that the committee was ready to screen the nominees, said “we cannot screen them until we have a formal communication from the Presidency.”
Other nominees for the board appointment include Sanusi Garuba (Vice Chairman), Nathan R. Shatti (commissioner), Dr. Moses Arigu (commissioner), Dafe C. Akpeneye (commissioner), Prof. Frank Okafor(commissioner) and Musiliu O. Oseni(commissioner).
