By Hillary Asemota
The Minister of Science Technology and Innovation, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, has attributed the reduction in Nigeria’s import bill by N5.03 trillion between 2017 and 2020, to the robust STI ecosystem which led to the burgeoning of new inventions, industries and businesses in the country.
The shift from resource to knowledge based economy driven by STI across the country has led to the production of goods and services, the Minister said..
The figure which was mined from the United Nations (UN) harmonised system code, and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showed a reduction of ₦613.6 billion in 2017, ₦412.8 billion in 2018, ₦2.3 trillion in 2019 and ₦1.71 trillion in 2020.
The Minister made the disclosure at the closing ceremony of the 2022 edition of the Ministry’s STI Expo, in Abuja, said federal government is opening a window of funding opportunity for its scientists, inventors, innovators in the STI ecosystem through the Horizon Europe partnership programme.
He acknowledged that the 6th of the Expo has been very rewarding interactions between researchers, inventors, innovators, entrepreneurs and investors.
He said: “We are further convinced that so many new businesses, leading to job and wealth creation, will spring up in different parts of the country out of these interactions.
“We saw the creativity of Nigerians which showed us that there was innovation and value addition in our farms, factories, homes, schools, hospitals, within our military, offices, laboratories among the old and young, male and female spread all through the different geopolitical zones and States of the nation.
“Government and Nigerians were impressed with the level of inventions and innovations taking place in our research institutes, universities, polytechnics, industrial laboratories and within the informal sector.
“We were particularly happy with the work that our secondary school students are doing in the area of innovation. The young scientists are indeed very impressive. Our future as a nation is indeed very bright with such a large number of talented Nigerians.”
On funding opportunities, he said the ministry is in a collaborative partnership programme with Horizon Europe for Nigeria, the new Africa initiative, stressing that this is a new European Union (EU) framework programme for research and innovation running from 2021 to 2027.
When fully implemented, he said the programme will support research and innovation in all institutions in Nigeria.
It will involve the participation of Nigerian scientists in the diaspora working with those at home in addition to European scientists and institutions, he added.
Onu, was excited on the progress made regarding the STI which had remained moribund for almost 30 years, explaining that President Muhammadu Buhari has launched the 2022 revised National Science, Technology and Innovation (NSTI) Policy, granted scholarship award to the best three students in the sciences in a nation-wide competition to study up to the Doctor of Philosophy Degree (Ph.D) level any science discipline in any Nigerian University of their choice; and commissioned the Science, Technology and Innovation Television (STItv).
He said: “We were particularly happy with the work that our secondary school students are doing in the area of innovation.
“The young scientists are indeed very impressive. Our future as a nation is indeed very bright with such a large number of talented Nigerians.”
This, he said has provided the opportunity to showcase the potentials of the critical stakeholders within the STI ecosystem, which provided an opportunity to put on display research and development, breakthroughs and findings, awaiting commercialization and subsequent utilization for industrial and services application, he added.
According to him: “Nigeria has become a home of startups. Using one of our agencies, the National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI), which has branches in all the States of the Federation, technologies developed locally are transferred to many of our entrepreneurs.
“Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are springing up in many parts of the country. The rate would have been faster and the volume far more than what it is, if we had a well-structured venture capital system.”
However, he said commendable progress has been recorded as small-scale enterprises have grown to medium and large businesses, adding that is a catalyst for job creation, poverty eradication, wealth generation and rapid industrialization of the country.
Emerging new frontiers of our research and innovation breakthroughs would make most of us proud particularly in space technology, ICT, software and hardware development, security and defence.
The vision of the ministry, according to Onu, is to make Nigeria improve her global competitiveness ranking among the committee of powerful and high-income nations.
He said Nigeria’s global competitiveness ranking has considerably improved from the position of 124 out of 140 countries by 2015/2016 to a position of 115 out of 140 by 2018/2019.
The Minister thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for allocating 0.5% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to funding research and innovation.