Why Nigeria’s economically under developed, by NBTI chief

Nigeria cannot develop economically if her research innovations do not get to the public, the Director-General, National Board for Technical Incubation (NBTI), Prof. Gambo Laraba Abdulahi, has said.

She expressed disappointment that the country is only interested in wooing investors, a development she described as unhelpful.

She spoke before the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Abuja between NBTI and the National research Institute for Chemical Technology (NARICT) on how to take the research materials from the research institutes and establishments to the door step of the public.

Abdulahi disclosed that through industrial development, Nigeria can generate wealth and create jobs.

She said can only be achieved by creating sustainable industries: She said: “Those sustainable industries have to be based on innovation.This is a very important opportunity for us that we are coming together to formalise an agreement between the two organisations. We have to partner to serve the country and at the same time able to deliver the dividends of science and technology to the people. We do realise the potential of NARICT. I can say that we know NARICT to be one of the most productive research institutes in the Ministry of Science and Technology.

“NARICT has been struggling to see how its research can reach the general public. There are quite a number of attempts of commercialisation but most of it remains a prototype, pilot level or slightly a bit beyond that. And the problem being that in Nigeria, economically we are not developed in terms of industrialisation to allow the industries to come forward looking for this kind of output.

Source : The Nation