By Dr. Aminu Owonikoko, PhD

Overview

This thesis investigates a deceptively simple but industrially important question: what happens to biomass materials when they are compressed and then allowed to relax? Biomass — such as woodchips, wheat straw, leafy residues, cotton seeds, and wood pellets — is a major renewable resource used for energy production and sustainable manufacturing. However, its physical behaviour during handling, storage, and processing is poorly understood. Unlike uniform materials such as sand or grain, biomass is irregular, springy, and unpredictable. This unpredictability leads to blockages, equipment failures, and inefficient energy use in biomass processing plants.

The research provides a scientific foundation for predicting how biomass behaves under pressure by combining controlled experiments with Visco elastic modelling. The work introduces a new method for extracting key model parameters, enabling more accurate and transparent predictions of biomass relaxation behaviour.

Why Biomass Behaviour Matters

Biomass supply chains involve several mechanical steps: compaction, transport, storage, and feeding into processing equipment. During these steps, biomass is often compressed. Once the pressure is removed, the material “relaxes” — it expands, shifts, and redistributes internal stresses. This relaxation affects:
• how much biomass can be stored
• how reliably it flows through hoppers and conveyors
• how much energy is required to process it
• the likelihood of blockages or equipment downtime

Understanding this behaviour is essential for designing efficient, reliable, and cost effective biomass systems.

Research Aim

The central aim of the thesis is to characterise the stress relaxation behaviour of five biomass feedstocks and to develop robust Visco elastic models that can predict this behaviour under different loading conditions.

Experimental Approach

Five biomass materials were selected due to their relevance in renewable energy and agricultural supply chains:
• Fuzzy cotton seeds
• Leafy biomass
• Wheat straw
• Woodchips
• Wood pellets

Each material was compressed using a Shimadzu MTS testing machine. After reaching a target stress level, the load was held constant while the material’s stress decay was recorded over time (typically 60, 120, and 180 seconds). These measurements captured both fast relaxation (immediate stress drop) and slow relaxation (longer term settling).

The experimental data revealed that each biomass type behaves differently, reflecting differences in structure, moisture content, particle shape, and internal bonding.
Modelling Approach

To interpret the experimental results, the thesis applies Visco elastic models — mathematical tools traditionally used to describe materials that behave partly like solids and partly like fluids. Two models were central:
1. Zener Model
– Captures both elastic and viscous behaviour
– Useful for materials with a clear fast relaxation component

2. Two Maxwell Elements Model
– Represents two relaxation processes simultaneously
– Ideal for materials with both fast and slow relaxation phases

A key contribution of the thesis is the development of a numerical and graphical method for estimating model parameters (such as relaxation time constants) without relying heavily on curve fitting software like MATLAB or OriginPro. This method improves transparency, reduces error, and makes the modelling approach more accessible to engineers.
Key Findings

1. Biomass Has Distinct Relaxation “Signatures”

Each biomass type exhibits a unique pattern of stress decay. For example:
• Wood pellets relax quickly and predictably.
• Leafy biomass relaxes slowly and irregularly.
• Wheat straw shows intermediate behaviour.
These signatures can be used to classify materials and predict their handling performance.

2. Fast and Slow Relaxation Are Mechanically Meaningful

The two Maxwell elements model successfully separates fast and slow relaxation processes. This distinction helps engineers understand how biomass responds immediately after compression versus how it settles over time.

3. New Parameter Extraction Method Improves Accuracy

The thesis introduces a novel approach for estimating relaxation time constants and stress components. This reduces dependence on automated curve fitting tools and provides more reliable model predictions.

4. Models Predict Real Behaviour Well

When applied to experimental data, both the Zener and two Maxwell models accurately reproduce the relaxation curves. This confirms that Visco elastic modelling is a powerful tool for biomass characterisation.

Practical Implications

The findings have direct relevance for industries that handle biomass:
• Improved equipment design: Better predictions of relaxation behaviour reduce blockages and mechanical failures.
• Optimised storage: Understanding how biomass settles helps determine safe and efficient storage densities.
• Reduced energy use: More predictable flow reduces the energy required for conveying and processing.
• Enhanced process reliability: Plants can operate more consistently with fewer interruptions.

Conclusion

This thesis provides a comprehensive experimental and theoretical framework for understanding biomass relaxation behaviour. By combining detailed measurements with improved Visco elastic modelling, it offers new insights into how biomass responds under pressure — insights that are essential for scaling up renewable energy and sustainable manufacturing.

The work advances both scientific understanding and practical engineering, contributing to the development of cleaner, more efficient biomass systems.

By Dr. Sani Sa’idu Baba

There is a particular kind of political fury that comes not from anger alone, but from patience, the slow deliberate accumulation of grievances until the moment is ripe for a devastating counterstrike. In Kano politics today, that moment may be fast approaching, and at its centre stand two men whose destinies appear to be converging toward one explosive objective: defeating the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027.

We could recall that, Nasir Yusuf Gawuna delivered over 800,000 votes for the APC in 2023 and was rewarded with chairman Governing Council of Bayero University Kano, while others who either allegedly worked against the party or contributed nothing received ministerial and other juicy appointments. His entitlements as former deputy governor reportedly remain unpaid. His godfather Abdullahi Umar Ganduje moved on. The party that he bled for quietly discarded him.

Yet, beneath this unfolding drama lies a deeper historical irony that could now reshape Kano’s political future. Gawuna was not always outside the orbit of Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. He was once a loyal Kwankwasiyya follower and served as a commissioner under Kwankwaso between 2011 and 2015 before realigning with Ganduje, first as commissioner and later as deputy governor. This history complicates the popular argument that Kwankwaso never forgives political defectors. On the contrary, emerging realities suggest that Kwankwaso may not only forgive Gawuna, but could elevate him, transforming a former defector into a “candidate of necessity.”

Meanwhile, Senator Kwankwaso, one of Nigeria’s most disciplined political generals, is carrying his own wound. His former godson Abba Kabir Yusuf, who rode to power largely on Kwankwasiyya’s machinery, has since drifted into open alignment with the APC, the movement’s historic adversary. For Kwankwaso, a man who thinks in decades, this perceived betrayal demands a response proportional to its scale and that response may well be delivered through Gawuna.

In purely electoral terms, the arithmetic is staggering. Gawuna’s 800,000-plus personal votes drawn from youth groups, Islamic clerics, and the Kano business community, layered on top of Kwankwasiyya’s legendary grassroots infrastructure, would produce a combination that analysts describe as simply unbeatable. What once looked like an unlikely reunion is increasingly being interpreted as a strategic convergence, one driven less by sentiment and more by necessity.

This is precisely why President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is reportedly alarmed enough to dispatch a Zamfara senator and a senior presidential adviser to reach Gawuna, while the APC dangles an automatic senatorial ticket as a sweetener. Kano is too critical to federal political calculations to lose without a fight.

Yet, the most telling detail in this entire drama is that Gawuna’s phone has reportedly been on “Do Not Disturb.” The man who was invisible to his party when appointments were being shared is now the most important call in northern Nigerian politics and he is on vacation in North Africa, unbothered.

That silence is not accidental. It is the posture of a man who finally has leverage and knows exactly how to use it.

Whether he ultimately answers Abuja’s calls or walks fully into Kwankwaso’s camp, one thing is already certain: the APC’s greatest threat in Kano 2027 may be the man they themselves abandoned.

Dr. Baba writes from Kano, and can be reached via drssbaba@yahoo.com

I. THE LETTER

To: The Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP
10 Downing Street
London

Sir Keir,

I hope this letter finds you in jubilant spirit. My name is Gold Emmanuel, and although we have never met, your recent conduct has made this correspondence unavoidable. I will cut straight to the chase without further ado.

History will likely remember you as the first British Prime Minister in the modern era to master the art of flogging a dead horse. During President Tinubu’s March 2026 state visit, the first by a West African leader in thirty‑seven years, you revived a brand of colonial‑era mercantilism that even your predecessors had the sense to leave in the archives. From the moment the Nigerian delegation was ushered from Heathrow with choreographed warmth, to the meticulously staged Windsor banquet with its polished silver, curated smiles and diplomatic theatre, you created the illusion of mutual respect. Yet beneath the chandeliers and velvet tablecloths, you were quietly engineering a £746 million export finance deal designed not to uplift Nigeria, but to resuscitate Britain’s faltering industrial strategy.

The “dead horse” here is the illusion of a partnership of equals. A clinical examination of the Lagos and Tin Can Island port refurbishment contract exposes the gaping loopholes your government has exploited:

– The British Steel Loophole: By ring‑fencing £236 million of the credit for British firms, including a record £70 million lifeline for Scunthorpe‑based British Steel, you ensured that the “loan” never actually leaves the UK. You are flogging the dead horse of Nigeria’s already “red” coffers to resurrect British manufacturing, forcing Nigeria to pay interest on a domestic subsidy disguised as “international development.”

– The Sovereign Risk Vacuum: Instead of genuine private‑sector investment, your administration deployed a Buyer Credit Facility via Citibank, guaranteed by UK Export Finance (UKEF). This ensures the UK is made whole by the Nigerian taxpayer regardless of project success, an extractive model that makes even the most rigid conditionalities of the 1980s appear benevolent.

– The Port‑for‑People Trade: In a move that marks a moral nadir, you tied infrastructure credit to an expedited migration pact. By compelling Nigeria to recognise “UK Letters” for swift deportations, you effectively traded 120,000 tonnes of steel billets for the right to return vulnerable people to a conflict zone.

This migration pact is not merely “sleeky”; it is a calculated circumvention of the 1951 Refugee Convention. By institutionalising “UK Letters,” identification documents issued solely by your Home Office, you have bypassed Article 33, which prohibits refoulement: The forcible return of individuals to territories where they face threats to life or freedom. Your “Expedited Return Protocols” further violate the Convention’s requirement for individualised, non‑discriminatory assessment. You have created a legal loophole that enables mass removals before claims can be judicially reviewed, in direct defiance of the UNHCR’s global mandate.

To understand the true cost of your “success,” one must look beyond the silver service of Windsor to the scorched earth of Kwara State. In February 2026, the Woro and Nuku massacres, the deadliest jihadist attacks outside the North East in a decade, left more than 200 dead and 38 kidnapped. While you discussed “port efficiencies,” Nigerian children were being abducted by the JAS terror group. Your migration pact ignores UNHCR guidance, which expressly forbids the forced return of civilians to regions where they face a real risk of serious harm. You demand “order at the border” while Nigeria faces its deadliest insurgency in years.

The predatory nature of your policy is now unmistakable. You have designed a system to take their money, to make them permanent debtors, and then to deport their citizens into a void of nothingness. You have ensured that the Nigerian treasury is bled dry to support Scunthorpe’s furnaces, while the human beings who sought refuge in Britain are discarded back into the very “virtual vice” of terror, where 1,258 people were slaughtered in the first six weeks of 2026 that they sacrificed everything to escape.

Compared with your predecessors, the cynicism of your approach is staggering. Even under the rhetoric of Empire, there was at least a pretence of building institutions. Under your leadership, the relationship has been reduced to a transaction i.e. Nigeria takes the debt, the UK takes the steel orders and the Nigerian diaspora takes the fall. You have managed to be more extractive than the Conservatives and more indifferent to human rights than the pragmatists of the 1990s.

The “sleeky lender” has indeed found its “clumsy borrower,” but the reverse burden lies at your doorstep. It is not for the Nigerian villager to prove they are in danger; it is for your government to explain how a £70 million steel contract justifies the refoulement of human beings into a war zone. You are not building a bridge between nations; you are constructing a one‑way track for British capital, paved with the discarded dignity of the Nigerian people.

And so, Sir Keir, let us dispense with the pretence. A banquet does not make a partnership. A warm reception does not make a fair deal. And no amount of silverware can disguise a policy architecture built on extraction, dispossession and political convenience. You have chosen the short‑term profit of a loan shark over the long‑term integrity expected of a global leader. History will record it accordingly.

I attach a petition for your perusal before its public release.

II. THE PETITION

PETITION TO THE PARLIAMENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

Subject: Urgent Inquiry into the Ethical and Legal Viability of the UK–Nigeria Export Finance and Migration Partnership

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, concerned observers and citizens, petition the Government to immediately suspend the migration provisions attached to the £746 million UKEF port refurbishment deal with Nigeria.

PETITION GROUNDS
– Violation of International Law: The use of “UK Letters” to bypass sovereign passport verification directly contravenes Article 33 of the 1951 Refugee Convention and undermines the principle of non‑refoulement.
– Unfair Contractual Terms: The “British Steel” ring‑fencing clause constitutes an unethical use of export finance, forcing a developing nation to assume high‑interest debt to subsidise UK domestic industry.
– Security Risk Misalignment: Enforcing deportations while Nigeria remains in a state of high‑intensity insurgency, evidenced by the 2026 Woro and Nuku massacres, is a breach of the UK’s duty of care and human rights obligations.
– Detrimental Financial Implication: The commission and interest structures represent predatory lending. The “sleeky lender” (UK) bears zero project risk while the “clumsy borrower” (Nigeria) mortgages its primary maritime assets, on terms your own Government condemns in loan‑sharking legislation.

ACTION REQUESTED
We call for a full Parliamentary Select Committee inquiry into the “Port‑for‑People” trade‑off and the immediate cessation of forced removals to Nigeria until a full, independent security assessment is completed.

III. PRESS‑READY PUBLIC STATEMENT

For media, civil society and public circulation.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UK–Nigeria Deal Condemned as “Port‑for‑People Trade‑Off” in Explosive Open Letter to Prime Minister

Gold Emmanuel has issued a blistering open letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, accusing his government of reviving colonial‑era mercantilism under the guise of a £746 million export finance deal with Nigeria. The letter alleges that:
– Britain ring‑fenced £236 million for UK firms, including £70 million for British Steel
– The deal forces Nigeria to assume debt for what is effectively a UK domestic subsidy
– The migration pact attached to the deal violates the 1951 Refugee Convention
– Deportations are being accelerated despite escalating jihadist violence in Nigeria

A petition has been submitted to Parliament calling for:
– Suspension of all deportations to Nigeria
– A Select Committee inquiry
– A full review of the UK’s use of “UK Letters” for forced removals

“This is not partnership,” Emmanuel writes. “It is extraction dressed as diplomacy.”

IV. PARLIAMENTARY BRIEFING NOTE

For MPs, Lords, Select Committees.

BRIEFING: UK–Nigeria Export Finance & Migration Partnership

Key Issues:
– Legal: Potential breach of Article 33 of the Refugee Convention
– Financial: UKEF structure shifts all risk to Nigeria
– Industrial: £236m ring‑fenced for UK suppliers
– Security: Deportations to active conflict zones
– Ethical: Migration conditionality tied to infrastructure credit

Recommendation: Immediate Select Committee inquiry and suspension of removals pending security assessment.

V. INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS SUBMISSION VERSION

For UNHCR, OHCHR, Amnesty, HRW.

SUBMISSION: UK–Nigeria Migration Protocol and Risk of Refoulement

The UK’s use of “UK Letters” for expedited removals to Nigeria constitutes:
– A circumvention of Article 33 (non‑refoulement)
– A violation of the requirement for individualised risk assessment
– A breach of UNHCR guidance on returns to conflict zones

The situation in Kwara State and the Middle Belt demonstrates a real risk of serious harm, making forced returns unlawful under international human rights standards.

Requested Action:
Urgent review and public statement from relevant bodies.

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