Nigeria is a sleeping giant that needs to wake up, so the rest of Africa can wake up
Uche Nnaji, Nigeria’s Minister of Innovation, Science, and Technology, has stressed the importance of ST&I in developing solutions to national problems and boosting the country’s economy.
During his speech at the Sankore Project launch, a joint effort between Ghana and Nigeria, Nnaji emphasized the role that ST&I can play in fostering economic diversification, improving public health, creating jobs, building resilience to climate change, ensuring food security, and developing sustainable energy.
He stated that the move is in accordance with the eight-point strategy that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has outlined, particularly with regard to the development of technology, capacity building, and economic growth.
He said, “The Sankore Project promises to deliver innovative solutions that will significantly enhance economic growth, improve public service delivery, and raise living standards across our region. Importantly, it seeks to establish robust frameworks to ensure coordinated project delivery and rigorous monitoring of outputs and impacts.
“This significant initiative, generously supported by UK International Development with an accountable grant delivery mechanism valued at up to £1.9 million Pounds, symbolizes a critical partnership between the governments of Nigeria and Ghana, UNESCO, R4D, and the United Kingdom.”
Dr. Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Ghana, said “Nigeria is a sleeping giant that needs to wake up, so the rest of Africa can wake up. Nigeria has the capacity to lead the entire continent of Africa, and we can do this through forums such as this Sankore project.
“I want to thank UNESCO and the organizers for creating this opportunity for us to meet once again, to rekindle this time, not a rough war, but a war to innovate and to create the needed jobs for the teaming employees we have in our countries.
“And also, to remind us, that the challenges confronting us as a people can only be surmounted if we do what the psychologists call a superordinate goal.
“In psychology, superordinate goals are goals that are mutually desirable and cannot be achieved by one group alone, requiring two or more groups to cooperate to achieve them, often used to reduce intergroup conflict.
“So it’s an opportunity for me to remind myself and remind you that we have an opportunity, we need to work in a collaborative fashion to be able to keep the purpose for which this 1.9 million pounds, I guess, has been provided for this project.
“All the agencies under the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology in Ghana, their core mandate and function is to research and innovate.
“In Ghana there are people who are research commercialization pessimists. They can’t stand any ideas of attempting to commercialize research.
“The time has come for us to begin looking at how we can commercialize the output of research for the good of those research institutions and for our collective growth and development.”