Nigeria needs to take science more seriously—an agenda for the new president
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Loading... - Mary Olukoya
- 24 Mar 2023
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Nigerians voted to elect a new president on 25 February and he will be sworn in on 29 May 2023. One of his responsibilities must be to lead the country in taking science more seriously. Science should be the fulcrum of Nigeria's development.
As a fellow and past president of the Nigerian Academy of Science, the umbrella body of Nigeria's leading scientists, I offer the following tips for Nigeria's new president:
Increase funding for scientific research
Nigeria has shown a deep neglect of science. Science and technology are seriously underfunded and minimally used in national development. For example oil refineries are shut down and Nigeria cannot produce vaccines locally, having stopped in 1991.
The first time Nigeria had a Ministry of Science and Technology was in 1980, 20 years after independence. The first national science and technology policy was produced in 1986, six years later.
During the first 20 years of the ministry, it had 10 ministers, each with a different agenda and policy.
Nigeria's first real attempt at funding public research was in 2006, when the government planned to create a US$5 billion endowment fund for science and technology. But the political will to do this wilted in the face of a lack of commitment of funds to execute the proposal. Since then, funding science and research in Nigeria has been as erratic and unpredictable as the political changes.
An attempt was made in 2012 to revive the fund with an independent board, headed by President Goodluck Jonathan himself. But when he left office in 2015 there was still no fund.
In 2016, the federal government announced a N3 billion (US$6.5 million) National Research Fund. A committee to manage it was only set up 17 months later. Read More…
