Experts have raised concerns over local industries’ continued near total dependence on foreign technological input, particularly at a time that the Nigerian government is desperately looking for ways to boost foreign exchange earnings by encouraging increased exports and moving focus away from the current mono-product economy.
Available statistics show that 80-90 percent of the technologies utilised in local manufacturing, which are also critical to the real sector in the country are imported. Whether in terms of consultancies, production machineries and Knowledge beyond the service they are providing, huge sums are spent to acquire required technologies, much of which experts say local universities are capable of generating.
But the experts suggest that clusters of industrial parks located a close distance to institutions of higher learning across the country could solve the problem of University-Industrial relations which has been at its lowest ebb in the country, but otherwise has the capacity to create wealth in different sectors of the economy.
Peter Onwualu, former director-general of the Raw Materials Research Development Council (RMRDC) who faulted the full scale dependence on foreign technologies input, said in other parts of the world, research findings from the universities are key drivers of entrepreneurship base of their economies.
“If you go to Holland where they make this milk, the company has an R and D centre, populated with over 100 PHD holders and they do most of these researches in collaboration with their industries. And so, they generate new products, make the milk better, and send these products down to us here,” he lamented.
“The universities are supposed to generate knowledge, and pass on to industries, but there is a strong disconnect in our country,” he noted. “Part of the reason, he explained, was that entrepreneurs are not always patient enough to follow the research ladder and the researchers do not have the capacity to mass produce some of the research findings, that is where we need government to close the gap by building industrial clusters for both researchers and entrepreneurs.”
Industrial clusters according to findings, are already entrenched in some advanced economies, such as United States ,China, Germany, Finland, United Kingdom, where industries are linked to university researches, making the link between both of them stronger for wealth creation and impacting the society”
Analysts believe that stronger industry-university relations could be a money spinner for the government, especially now that the country is facing dwindling oil resources.
Francs Jacobs, the president of MAN, in an interaction with BusinessDay informed that there had been attempts by the leadership of MAN to ensure correlation between industries and research institutes for effective utilisation of research findings.
“We have signed Memoranda of Understanding to be able to utilise the research findings of some of our institutions, such as the Covenant University, University of Ife, the Federal Institute of Industrial Research (FIIRO) Oshogbo. So that we further keep tracking their research and using it to advance our industries,” Jacobs disclosed.
He further suggested to entrepreneurs to further link up with the Bank of Industry, who would provide Business Support Services, and guide on how to write proposals, and get finances on their small scale industries for the advancement of the economy.
He also suggested to the research institutes not to leave their research findings to rot away on the shelves but work closely with MAN so that they make sufficient use of the raw materials for industrial purposes along the value chain for wealth creation.
“The purpose is to constantly source for the raw materials that would boost the real sector and add value,” he said.
Harrison Edeh
