By Naomi Uzor
The Minister of Science and Technology, Prof.Mohammed Ka’oje Abubakar said the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology (FMST) is clearly a critical force in charting the path that Nigerians should follow as a nat
ion in achieving our developmental agenda – vision 20-2020 and 7-point agenda, which are specifically designed for Nigeria to catch-up with the advanced economies in the world.

Speaking at the stakeholders forum organised by the National Centre for Technology Management (NACETEM) at the Lagos Chamber ofCommerce and Industry (LCCI), recently, Abubakar said to achieve this, we must all be reminded that the developed and the rapidly emerging economies in the contemporary world attained their enviable position largely through great importance attached to the National Science and Technology (S&T) development.

Abubakar said that the Science and Technology Innovation (STI) driven policy agenda will be ideal in significantly bridging the competitive gap between Nigeria and the more developed world in the area of knowledge creation and application.

“The United States of America, Brazil, China and India are just few good examples, the transformation witnessed by these countries did not happen by accident; rather by commitment to, and deployment of S&T knowledge in development” he said.

He noted that having been too slow to catch up with our contemporaries in the global community, Nigeria has unfortunately slipped into the “latecomers” category in terms of development but that  government is now convinced that to be a strong and economically buoyant nation, we need to pursue our national developmental agenda through an elaborate S&T policy and make efforts to harness our resources through S&T.

“This forum in my candid opinion, provides wonderful opportunities for us, as key actors and stakeholders, to address the critical issues relevant for initiating government efforts to provide workable S&T framework for sustainable solutions to our socio-economic problems.”