Technology: Onu Tasks Engineers On Diversification Of Economy

Nkechi Isaac

The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, has tasked Nigerian engineers to strengthen their efforts toward diversifying national economy through the promotion of local engineering technology.
He threw the challenge when he received a delegation from the Nigerian Academy of Engineering (NAE) led by its president, Prof. Rauf Salawu in his office in Abuja.
He said: “I would like to talk in a plain language because you are the apex of the engineering profession as members of the academy. We would like to challenge the Nigerian engineers to do more than they are doing today to make sure that we can really diversify our economy because the situation that we find ourselves today in our country I don’t think any Nigerian is really happy with it, a situation that basically all the things

that we need we import them.
“We believe that our engineers should work harder and take up the challenge to ensure that we import less than we are importing today and through import substitution we will be in a position to produce many of the things that we need because if we don’t do that we may wake up one day and find/discover that we’ll be carrying money in trucks to buy even bread; and our engineers really have to take up this challenge and work to make sure that here in Nigeria our country we can be producers rather than just being consumers, we should be able to produce as well as consume.”
Saying such effort will help the present administration to realise its main objectives, he urged them to help in actualising President Muhammadu Buhari’s quest to build a strong and resilient economy.
“We want to assure you that the ministry will take our nation to the level where we no longer have the sort of problems we are having today. We are convinced that if we work as we should that there is no reason why our country will have problems in terms of the things that we can produce ourselves and the technology that we can develop.

“The ministry is working very hard to help the administration achieve its major goals. There are three principal things that we are interested in – like securing the country, growing the economy, and also creating jobs and preventing corruption. Here engineers have a lot to do in these three areas, there is no way you can solve these problems without science and technology and so we believe very strongly that the academy can play a more vigorous role in helping us achieve the objectives of this administration,” he further stated.
Onu told the team that the ministry was also ready to assist the academy to effectively discharge its responsibilities to collectively uplift the nation.
“The ministry in the very near future will start supporting the academy directly. We would do so because we believe that it is the right thing to do and we will start modestly and grow it from there because we believe that if the academy has all the support that it needs that it can make all the contributions in measured areas,” he added
Earlier, the leader of the team, Salawu told the minister that the academy was ready to strengthen its strategic partnership with the ministry to promote science, engineering, technology and innovation (SETI) in the country.
The academy, he also said, would provide input and leadership in national technological issues and policies at the highest level possible through contributions to SETI ideas in Nigeria and, by extension, globally,” he stated.
He described the academy as a think tank for engineering and technology in Nigeria with focus on researches and studies across the field of engineering, urging the Federal Government to encourage Nigerian engineers through the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) and the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI) as well as encourage and patronize them for job creation and local content initiative.