•Calls for ban on foreign goods produced locally
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, through its agencies, has developed diagnostic process, treatment and drugs for common diseases like sickle cell and hypertension and has also made significant achievements in food processing and fabrication of equipment to boost food production.
The minister, Olorunnimbe Mamora, who made the disclosure during the ministerial briefing organised by the Presidential Communication Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said the Federal Government had been working hard to move the nation from a resource-driven to a knowledge-driven economy.
He expressed sadness that majority of inventions by agencies under his ministry were sitting idle on shelves due to a lack of investors and investments and proposed prohibition of all foreign products that Nigeria has the capacity to produce locally as one of several measures to protect local industries and ideas.
According to Mamora, while the ministry would continue to engage relevant stakeholders, it is also thinking of a legislation to compel protection of the inventions before pushing them to the market.
On what has been done with all the several inventions by the ministry, Mamora replied: “It’s a question that we have also been pondering about. It will interest you that virtually all our agencies have come up with one invention or the other.
“But the challenge had always been taking these research outputs to the market because until and unless we are able to take them to the market, we would not be seen to have been able to do something.”
While noting that the ministry’s gradual steps may be slow, he added, “we need to do more in terms of having that handshake between the research institutions and the market through investors and those who are interested – people that move around with their capital and would want to invest. So, it’s a challenge that we know we are still facing which we will need to do more.
“We have so many outputs that are still gathering dust in shelves in various agencies. So, what we are doing is to continue to engage, to continue to have fora for these engagements where we can bring all stakeholders together.”
He further pointed out the need for Nigerians to be aware of the local inventions and desire them, and for investors to be willing to embrace the products and get them introduced to the consumers’ market.
“We are also looking at how we can compel, as it were, a little bit of legislation that once these things are available, particularly if they are protected because we also need to protect the intellectual property, we can just push them to the markets.
“So, the challenge is about getting investors that will take these inventions out there and these things can then be useful to our people. Again, we also have a duty in terms of our own nationalism.
“One of the challenges again is that we have developed taste that is not local. Rather, taste that is alien. We have this tendency to want to get something from abroad.
“Again, I think government will need to really come hard in terms of a total banning, as it were, of things that we have capacity to do locally. That is why nationalism comes in.”
The minister also disclosed that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration had been busy with ideas and efforts to move Nigeria from a resource-driven to a knowledge-driven economy.
“What we hope to achieve is to move from resource based-economy to knowledge-based. This is important because there is no resource that cannot be exhausted but one resource that you cannot exhaust is knowledge. The more you know, the more you want to know it is not exhaustible. So, that is what our goal is. That is what we want to achieve.”
Talking about specific achievements by the Ministry, the Minister said it has contributed a lot to the country’s Gross domestic Product (GDP). From 2015-2022, the nominal GDP grew from N94.4 to N199.34 trillion and the Science Tech and Innovation (STI) sector grew from N3.93 trillion to N5.35 trillion by 2022. Invariably the STI contribution to nominal GDP was 4.2 percent in 2015 but dropped for obvious reasons to 2.7 percent by 2022 essentially as a result of the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities and the emergence of COVID-19.
“This trend analysis shows an annual average of STI contribution of 3.6 percent and 3.5 percent for nominal GDP and real GDP. It is inspiring that in real terms, the STI contribution enhances the position of ranking among 46 specific sectors of the economy,” he said.
He also highlighted the contribution of science and technology to the agricultural sector in Nigeria, the minister said a lot had been achieved.