NNRA TRAINS REGULATORS ON THE SYSTEMS OF ACCOUNTING FOR AND CONTROL OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS

A five-day Training Workshop for nuclear regulators on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA’s) system of accounting for and bringing nuclear materials coming into the country under full regulatory control has been held in Abuja. The participants were drawn mainly from the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority, NNRA, with some nuclear scientists joining them from the Centre for Energy Research and Training, CERT, Zaria. The workshop is widely seen as important because it deals with nuclear safeguards which are the most politically contentious aspect of the IAEA mandate. Nuclear safeguards are about non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Therefore, all fissile materials and related equipment must be properly accounted for, documented and verified by IAEA inspectors who may visit the country at any time of their choice. Presently, the country has a nuclear research reactor, 30 kw NIRR-1, in Zaria. However, more of such materials, especially nuclear fuel, are expected to be brought into Nigeria when the proposed Nuclear Power Plants for electricity generation take-off.
The Director-General, NNRA, Professor Shamsideen Elegba, who described the workshop as timely, said it is the first of such workshop to be organized in the country. This, he said, is borne out of NNRA’s strong belief in staff skills development for successful nuclear safety, radiation protection and nuclear safeguards. Well-trained officers, he continues, are needed for the country to meet her national and international Safeguards and Safety obligations in the application of nuclear energy as in the Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Act of 1995, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which Nigeria signed in 1968 and Additional Protocol to the NPT which was ratified in 2007.

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The great turning point, he said, came with the coming into force of the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement in January, 2004 preparatory to the shipment of nuclear fuel for the first research reactor in the country, NIRR-1, which was commissioned in 2004. Thereafter, he said, a State System of Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials was established and Nigeria has ever since been submitting annual reports on all safeguarded nuclear materials and activities in the country. Such reports, he said, are verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, during their Annual Safeguards inspections.