Journalist Kayode Bhadmus has ventured into bio-digester technology and biogas production after about three decades of practice in the noble pen profession.
Mr. Bhadmus whose stint in the nation’s media industry traversed across The National Concord, Business Day among others, said his foray into biogas and bio-digester technology became necessary when it dawn him that the in thing in the 21st Century is green environment which biogas production and bio-digester promote and support.
He said that biogas and bio-digester involved waste and sewerage management system that allows for recycling water and producing biogas by using environmentally friendly technology, explaining that it helps in conservation and serve as alternative source of power at affordable, durable and convenient way.
According to him, “if you don’t go green, you destroy yourself.”
He described journalism as a social service which does not bring millions or billions of naira to the practitioners, saying if one wants to practice it with integrity as a watch dog and potent voice to hold the three arms of government accountable to the people, one must have a second address to lean on in order to overcome temptations from the “oppressors” in government.
Bhadmus spoke to our reporter shortly after a guided tour of the Pelican Brief Estate and Pelican Ecostay Apartments situating at Masa – Kobape corridor of Ogun State, where a leading real estate firm – Pelican Valley Nigeria Limited, is working to ignite an eco – friendly and zero – carbon emission ‘Smart City’ and ‘Knowledge base’ of the state.
He lauded the man behind the novel project, realtor Babatunde Adeyemo, for his ingenuity, creativity and commitment to the green environment through the Ecostay apartments concept, it would promote good health and longevity in guests, tourists and residents of the planned facilities.
“The location is rare creativity and outright ingenuity. The layout, the settings, upcoming homes and the calibre of people that are to reside here and the naturalness of the environment showed they are on track based on the concept of ecostay.
“The in thing in the 21st century is green environment. If you don’t go green, you destroy yourself. You exchange with plant when plants releases oxygen as its waste, you imbibe oxygen for your own life and when you releases Carbon-dioxide as your waste, plants pick it for food production (photosynthesis). So the initiator got it right by calling it Ecostay. Even with air conditional you can’t compare it with natural air from God.” he said.
Speaking extensively on the biogas, bio-digester and the critical role Mr Bhadmus is expected to play in Pelican Valley’s scheme of things towards achieving eco- friendly Ecostay Apartments as well as the opportunity created about 25 years ago by former governor Aremo Olusegun Osoba which made the area a suitable location for the planned Smart City, the CEO of Pelican Valley Nigeria Limited, Ambassador Adeyemo said, “From the word ecostay you can see that we are really working towards making the environment friendly, and free from carbon emission. In furtherance of that, we brought in Mr Bhadmus, a colleague a brother and a friend who also has a second address like me, we have tested him at Pelican Valley. He has delivered and he has just concluded a Bio-digester for us at Pelican Valley Estate. I used that as a testing ground for him, and having delivered on that, I now bring him down to Ecostay Apartments and Pelican Brief Estate where we want to ignite a smart city and where we want luxury to meet nature.
“We are combining two things here and we want it to be as natural as possible, instead of us digging a suck away, thereby degrading the environment, we are looking at a bio digester, which can also be converted to biogas to generate electricity. You can see that we have already gotten 500kva transformer, they are fully energized and connected to 33KVA trunk line, that supplies us about 18-20hours electricity per day.
“We just need an alternative power supply that can cover for the remaining 4 or 5 hours averagely. We are also looking at the direction of solar-inverter, then bio digester to bio gas. We want here to be 100percent eco -friendly. It is a well laid out environment, we have a place we can use for lounge, restaurant and we are trying to get about two or three camels, we are also looking for peacocks just to create a natural ambience.
“I always like to explore what is around me first. Taking a journalist who is a senior colleague and also the issue most journalists have is that we have the trumpet but we don’t blow it, it is very quite unfortunate, we have been together for almost quite 20years, i never knew that he is into bio digester and bio gas untill recently. I was marveled to know that, so this man is a bundle of talent and creativity like this and he’s not making noise about it.
“Now that we have discovered him, we will put all we have to encourage him. Look at what is happening here, developing here goes beyond Babatunde Adeyemo, i don’t think i can finish developing this place. We are trying to ignite a smart city here. The development here is a continuous project. In the next 30-40 years my children will still add value to what we are doing here.
“Where we are standing exactly is where we want to develop our cooperate headquarters, we are going to have a F. M Radio station here, people like Mr Bhadmus and people that are fulfilled in their profession will have one or two radio programmes to enlighten people here. We are going to have a Pelican Office here, the floor is going to be for Oko Opo Foundation, that’s my NGO that I will be launching any moment from now. So we are going to have a lot of activities.
By the grace of God, in the next two or three months, I want to invite the former Governor of Ogun State, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, to commission something here because this is part of his handiwork, without him dragging the 35KVA electricity line from the main road to this place I would not have been privileged to have this estate here. Chief Osoba created an opportunity about 25 years ago and one Dr. Babatunde Adeyemo is taking full advantage of that opportunity now.
“We are also planning to appeal to the incumbent governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, to honour us with his presence to see what God has been using us to achieve. This is a generational project.
I am really excited to have somebody that has the expertise that could stand the test of time that we need here. We have so many people doing the biogas and bio-digester work, infact, we are about to award contract to someone to do it but I will want to use Bhadmus. He is like our own blood. He is a journalist, he is my family. i will use my power to encourage somebody that is my family.
“I want to encourage other journalists to have a second address and that is why we are collaborating with NUJ to provide some funds with no interest, we will lend to those that already have second address to add to whatever they are doing and when they refund it, we will lend to others. We are doing it for charity, we are not expecting extra income or revenue from that. We are going to support Bhadmus, we just need to push him more to propel his action for future growth and development.”
