Gerard Izuora
The minister of science and technology Dr. Ogbonaya Onu has commended Federal Institute for Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO) for its immense contributions towards the development of the National Science, Technology and Innovation Roadmap (NSTIR), saying its implementation will save the country over $11billion (about N4trillion) within five years.
Onu who gave the commendation at the unveiling of NSTIR 2030 document and interactive session of the South West sensitization of the document described it as the road rap of ‘all Road Maps’.
“NSTIR 2030 is a roadmap of all roadmaps. Other road maps have a life span of 3-5 years, but this road map of 13 years would outlive this present government and would also outlive my stay as the Minister”, he stressed.
According to Onu, NSTIR is a development plan for the country which will help move the country away from over dependence on oil, and also help the country move away from commodity dependent economy to intellectual based economy.
“If China with over one billion population could do it, Nigeria will. Our problem is not the population, but to harness the intellectual potentials and the talents of the populace.. Our generation must do better than the previous generations”, Onu posits.
The minister further disclosed that it is the priority of the present administration to harness
the raw materials and products that are abundant in the country so as to stop their importation and huge foreign exchange spent, adding that all state governors, commissioners of science and technology, universities and polytechnics ,the organized private sector and research institutes as well as Nigerians in diaspora contributed to the development of the science road map.
Also speaking at the occasion, the Director General of FIIRO, Professor Gloria Elemo, promised that her institute shall continue to giver support to all the programmes of the science and technology ministry in pursuit of government vision on the diversification and growth of the national economy using the tools of science, technology and innovation.
Elemo assured the minister of unalloyed support of, the Institute and all the parastatals under the supervision of ministry in his campaign of using the instrument of science, technology and innovation to drive the national economy as seen in the Change Agenda through economic diversi6cation programme of the present administration.
“But this cannot happen without a roadmap which is what the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology under the leadership of His Excellency, the Honorable Minister of Science and Technology has put together.
“The event today is a Sensitization Programme on the National Science, Technology and Innovation Roadmap at the South West geo-political zone’, she stated.
Describing the Road Map. Ekanem Udoh, Director, Science and Technology Promotion, says that the road map is for private sector to see what the government hasa put in place, , acquire it and build industries in order to generate the needed jobs for the teaming unemployed youths.
“This provides framework to promote Science and Technology, and to provide catalyst to move science and technology forward in Nigeria. It is also to create platform for Nigerians to key into science, technology and innovation in every sector of the economy,” he stressed.