When Uniqconsult first started, it was a consulting company that provided opportunities for Nigerian students to study and train in Russia with the help of scholarships. We sat down with Prof. John Kester, the founder of Uniqconsult, to discuss the great work they did working with Students.
During a 1986 conference in the United States (US), Prof. John Kester received the opportunity to visit as a student representing his school in the Soviet Union. During this time, Prof. John Kester became a member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ASABE) and began looking into consulting.
“In essence, where it all started is I observed consulting skills within the American Society of Agricultural Engineers during my time in the US. This made me decide to learn more about consulting,” says Prof. John Kester.
Once he and his wife completed their education in the Soviet Union, they decided to move to the US. This was when Prof. John Kester registered the company Uniqconsult. While in the US, he worked on enhancing his skills in consulting while also working on getting Uniqconsult up and running.
While working in the US, Prof. John Kester met Nigeria’s former president Olusegun Obasanjo. “Former President Obasanjo is very close to Andy Young. So when he was president, visiting Atlanta, he would convince us to return to Nigeria. He said ‘Come back. And once you do, come see me.’ So I decided to visit Nigeria.”
In Nigeria, Prof. John Kester also registered Uniqconsult as a company. His main goal was to be able to share with African governments the experiences he had and everything he learned during his time in the Soviet Union and the US.
Once in Nigeria, Prof. John Kester visited former President Obasanjo in his office and discussed the possibility of starting a program where Uniqconsult would send Nigerian students abroad for training and study.
Prof. John Kester says, “I came back to Nigeria and proposed to each state government to offer scholarships. I could secure discounts from Russian universities to train Nigerian students in Russia. I got approval and sent some students to Russia, about 120 students at first. About 500 Nigerian students joined my program and went to study in Russia.”
With this program, Uniqconsult grew exponentially and began to increase its consulting work by beginning to work with various other African governments to send students abroad to even more countries.
“Eventually, I went to other African countries like Gambia, Ghana, Republic of Niger, Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, the Central African Republic, and Angola. The president of Angola, back then, actually studied in Russia (Soviet Union) – José Eduardo dos Santos. He was our overall president of the African Association of Soviet Trained Students when I was there. He was helpful in Angola,” says Prof. John Kester.
Prof. John Kester managed to guide many students from various parts of Africa and send them abroad to complete their training and education. This work helped build the lives of many students as well as build up Uniqconsult. He says, “I ended up training almost 1200 students abroad in nine different universities, in the US, in the UK, in Malaysia, and a few in Canada.”
