The Federal Government say it is set to revamp research in institutions and universities to a level that they can compete with the best centres of learning in other parts of the world.
Government also has the plans to produce Nobel Laureates in medicine, physics and chemistry in the near future.
The Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu stated this while delivering a lecture on the topic “The Roles of Science and Technology in National Development” to the participating students of Senior Course 39/2016, of the Armed Forces Command & Staff College, Jaji , Kaduna state yesterday.
“The cooperation and collaboration between the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology and our Universities will grow stronger in the years to come. Many branches of our research institutes will in the future be located in or affiliated with universities. We are convinced that working closely with universities will be helpful in such a way that in the future, at least one university in Nigeria will one day be ranked as the best in Africa and one of the best ten (10) in the world.”
Onu stressed the need for Nigeria to use technology to rediscover and unravel her rich past to enable to her secure today for a better tomorrow.
But the minister emphasized that the primary thing is for government to secure lives and property without which it cannot make any meaningful progress when lives of citizens are seriously threatened.
” A country can build roads paved with gold, build the most beautiful houses but whenever there is crisis or war, people run away from their houses and no vehicles are found on the roads as people run to bushes and shelters in order to protect themselves from bombs.
“No meaningful progress can be achieved when lives of citizens are seriously threatened. We can recollect the sad situation our dear country faced recently at the peak of the insurgency in the North East Zone when unknown flags were flown in Local Government Headquarters in some States and the armed forces needed weapons to help fight and defeat the insurgents. Even with cash at hand, we could not buy weapons.”
“If we had invested in science and technology and established our own defence industry, we would not have been confronted with that level of embarrassment. I am here to say to you that if we do what is right, this level of embarrassment will never occur again. This poses a challenge to the nation to as quickly as possible work hard and persevere until many of the technology gaps in the country are closed. There is no other option open to us.”
“This is no longer acceptable. We will employ the shortest possible means to close these gaps. We will work very hard to strengthen the linkage between research institutions and the universities on the one hand and on the other also strengthen the linkage between industry and research institutes.” He said.
He affirms President Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration committement to speedily work to close all technology gaps in the country as there are currently many technological gaps which unfortunately was allowed to exist for a very long time through the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology
“we need to discover, understand and venerate our past so that we can better appreciate the future. A people without a past cannot successfully plan for the future. “
