By Emmanuel Elebeke

The launching of the revised national policy on science, technology and innovation last week received a boost, with a call by IT stakeholders on government to marshal out an action plan with implementable and measurable benchmarks.

The action they said  was  crucial to the sector as it would  serve as a template for the successful achievement of the goals and strategies contained in the document, in line with the agenda of federal government to actualize the Vision 20 2020 goals.

According to  the stakeholders , the document when implemented would fast-track the Nigeria’s slow  journey to 2020 as one of the top economies in the world, in the area of sustainable development, job creation, improved gross domestic product, GDP and good governance.

Highlighting the document, Prof. Anya O. Anya said that the occasion offered Nigeria a rare opportunity for a comprehensive retrospective reflection on the successes and failures in the nation’s engagement with S&T in its effort to utilise the instrument of S&T to drive the socio-economic development and culture of Nigeria.

“The success or failure of the new policy will ultimately be judged because the transformation of the Nigerian economy will be based on science, technology and innovation. This underscores the need to transform the Nigerian people, organizations and institutions into S and T thinking entities.

“We need to design an action plan with implementable and measurable benchmarks as a template for the successful achievement of the goals and strategies which have been so painstakingly been brought together in the document. That will be the real measure of our alignment, implementation of the ST&I programme, with Nigeria Vision 20 2020,” he said.

Professor Anya further stated that the demand for creativity and innovation in an ST&I systems enforces the need for an environment, that optimises the creative tension that exists in a creative and innovative ST&I system, adding that for such system to exist, a political control must be institutionalised at the highest level, which would insulate the system from vagaries and rivalries of a normal bureaucratic system.

According to him, for the Nigerian ST&I environment to be competitive, merit and excellence must be given a pride of place to encourage local innovators, engineers and creative experts.

“The recognition of merit and excellence, and the institutionalisation of a reward system that enforces these values is key to the successful management of a creative and productive ST&I system. There is no shortcut to success. A key indicator is how the national fund for scientific, technology and engineering activities are managed and the structure of the decision making tree,”   he noted.

In his keynote address, the minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Ita Okon Ewa described the occasion as timely and described the new policy on ST&I as a critical step that would translate into a quantum leap for the socio-economic prosperity and emancipation of Nigeria.

“The policy we are launching today is innovative in several ways as it captures all critical sectors of the economy with wide stakeholder’s participation. It was designed to be inclusive in implementation, capturing all activities of both public and private-sector stakeholders that are relevant,” he added, saying that the trust the policy is on building synergy through seamless collaboration of all stakeholders in education and research both in public and private sectors.

“The document as a product of tireless and relentless effort of dedicated crème of professionals in the science and technology community is a catalyst that cans fast-track the transformation agenda of federal government. By this singular gesture, government has placed science, technology and innovation on the front burner of development and as a catalyst for the actualization of the national Vision 20 2020 and the transformation agenda,” he said.

In line with actualization of the same agenda, the minister disclosed that four sectorial policies on cutting-edge technologies were recently adopted by government to fast-track Nigeria’s entry into the global knowledge economy and the comity of technologically advanced nations. They include policies on Space science and technology, biotechnology, ICTs, energy research and development.

Earlier in his opening speech, the Chairman of the occasion and  the Comptroller of Nigerian Immigration Service, Mrs. Rose Uzoma said that the revised policy was approved by the national executive council to be the bedrock of research and development in the country.

“It is a tool for sustainable development enhances development, improve job creation. It emphasises on human capital development, structures, building and science development. It should be well implemented to achieve the Vision 20 2020, she said.

The immigration boss then called on stakeholders in the sector to partner government for smooth implementation of the policy.

Also speaking, the representative of World bank, Dr. Tunde Adekola said “there was a consensus to redesign the policy to propel science and technology to the next century,” noting that the reform Nigeria is taking had mattered with its policy change.

“It is time to move outside the traditional partners with the aim of benefitting from others. The demographic nature of Nigeria cab be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on how its citizens,” he said.

Also speaking, Professor Anya underscored the need to insulate S&T from bureaucratic bottlenecks,  described bureaucracy as enemy of science and technology, saying that the present structure and management of ST&I activities in the country tends to subject ST&I activities to the vagaries of inter-ministerial rivalry and competitive constraints imposed by limited resources.

“By the very nature of ST&I activities and productivity paradigms successful systems are not usually run through bureaucracies but more often through decentralised but competitive sub-systems. The reason is because progress and increased ST&I productivity is achieved in systems that encourage initiative and the flourishing of creativity.”

On funding, the former minister urged government to accord the sector the priority it deserved by ensuring an incremental growth of funds allocated to it from 0.1% to 3 per cent, on yearly basis.