It has been stated that innovation is a key driver of economic success for both industrialized and less industrialized countries. It is no news that Nigeria came 128th out of 141 economies around the world in the 2015 Global Innovation Index (GII). The same report covers 32 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2015, it was reported that regional innovation leaders in the sub-region include Mauritius which ranked 49th, South Africa (60th), and Senegal (84th). If South Africa was reported to have done well in innovation, it could be accepted but for Senegal to have performed better than Nigeria exposes inadequacies of innovation systems and policies in our country. Apart from Mauritius, South Africa and Senegal, seven other countries in the sub-region were reported to have shown noteworthy performances above their level of development. These countries are Rwanda (94th), Malawi (98th), Burkina Faso (102nd), and Mali (105th). Others regarded as low income top innovators are Kenya (92nd), Mozambique (95th), and Uganda (111th). In the ranking, 79 indicators were used to gauge both innovative capabilities and measure results. For instance, in other parameters such as innovation input which covers institutions, human capital and research infrastructure, market sophistication and business sophistication, Nigeria scored 135th, while in innovation output which covers knowledge, technology outputs and creative outputs, Nigeria demonstrated she is a laggard as the nation returned 109th out of 141. It was reported that those countries regarded as “innovation achievers” “demonstrate rising levels of innovation input and output results because of improvements made to institutional frameworks, skilled labour force with expanded tertiary education, better innovative infrastructure, a deeper generation with global credit investments and trade markets, and a sophisticated business community”.
Detailed analysis of “innovation achievers” such as China, Georgia, India, Jordan, Kenya and Malaysia amongst others shows that these nations have taken the pains to establish links between performance and good business practices and innovation policies. These are countries where meritocracy is given pre-eminence in governance, not nepotism nor the rule of the worst. These nations have realized that technology adoption is imperative but no longer sufficient to maintain a high economic growth scenario. Rather, they have realized that investment in innovation is vital to spur economic growth. Accordingly, national innovation policy programmes in conjunction with strong and enduring institutional arrangements have thrived mostly in some of the less industrialized countries.
Although available literature on innovation lays great emphasis on the role of human capital and institutions on technological innovation and economic development, these are areas regarded as most difficult for industrialized and less industrialized countries to achieve good scores, while R&D is one of the vital policy areas that cannot be ignored by governments in order to secure technological innovation and ultimately economic growth.
Innovation occurs when there is commercial transaction involving ideas or products in the market. Innovation describes the gamut of activities from research until the idea or product reaches the market place. Sometimes innovation as seen by some experts is the product of inspired amateurs, great determination, selflessness, intense curiosity, quick wits, clever fingers, luck, and capital coupled with strong regulations to provide protection and backing during the period testing, experimenting and processing are undertaken. This is why innovation is complex.
By implication, science alone cannot take ideas and products to the market. For instance, if scientific pre-eminence actually goes pari passu with technological leadership, a country like Japan would not have been able to challenge most countries in Western Europe and the USA in any area of high-tech today. Take the case of Japan, its scientific stature was until the 1980s incomparable to that of the USA and other developed nations in Western Europe. Recall that in the 1970s, Japanese products in Nigeria were considered inferior or regarded as fake. At that time, most Nigerians never wanted to be associated with products either made in Japan or China. Today, products from Japan, Korea, China and a few other countries are hallmarks and a measure of their success in the innovation endeavour. That is why some of these countries are regarded as top innovators in the GII ranking.
Another side of the argument that is interesting is the case of India. India has a large number of scientists and engineers, and indeed ranks third in the world in terms of scientifically and technically trained personnel. India is, however, still far from being regarded as an industrialized nation. It is to be stressed that science, engineering and technology belong to the same family and they work together when occasion demands. Today, much productive activities are still conducted without a deep scientific knowledge of why things perform the way they do. It is therefore wrong to think that science policy could be a substitute for technology policy. While science explains why things happen, engineering explains how to make it happen, and technology makes it happen. Although engineering appears to be silent in the innovation endeavour, it is the link between science and technology and consequently a crucial component of the family. These academic disciplines feed on themselves such that when one of them, say, technology, is not doing well in any nation, the others are asphyxiated. That is why in spite of massive flow of resources to scientific, technological and engineering endeavours in Nigeria in the last four decades, Nigerians have not known a worse period of poverty as they are currently going through in spite of all tertiary institutions and research establishments in the country. Science has not been able to give birth to the much-needed technology in Nigeria and the promised liberation from poverty.
