By Emmanuel Elebeke

The 13th meeting of the National Council on Science and Technology, NCST, ended in Minna, the Niger State capital at the weekend, with stakeholders saying that Nigeria must begin to adopt Science, Technology and Innovation at grass-root level, to be able to transform the economy into one of the top 20 economies by year 2020.

Speaker after speaker at the annual conference unanimously agreed that the adoption of ST&I is neither an option nor a luxury for Nigeria at this critical time but a necessity that would drive the economy to its full potentials.
The theme of the conference is: “Science, Technology and Innovation Policy: Prospects and Challenges of its Implementation at the Grassroots.”

According to them, Nigeria will sink further down in development, if it fails to develop its ST&I system, since global trends showed that countries with strong STI systems had progressed, using ST&I as basis for industrialization and sustainable development.

They therefore stressed the need for a holistic adoption of ST&I to transform Nigeria into one of the top 20 economies by the year 2020.

In her keynote speech, the Supervising Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson, said, innovation in science and technology has become a measure of the progress that the country is making to improve the quality of life of her citizens, which informed the decision of the Ministry to implement the new ST&I policy in a way and manner that benefits the ‘grassroots.

The Minister, underscored the significance of ST&I in an emerging economy, saying that a country’s ability to innovate has now become an indicator of the progress it is making towards improving the quality of life of her citizens and described innovation as lifeblood of economic growth and development, which according to her had become indispensible element in the ongoing Transformation Agenda of the present administration.

Inclusion of innovation
The National Science Technology and Innovation Policy, it will be recalled, was launched in 2012, which was the first time in Nigeria, innovation was incorporated in the Science and Technology policy.

To further butress the import of the inclusion of innovation on the Science and Technology policy, Johnson noted that lower income countries are no longer passive adopters of technology, and the technological gap between middle and high income countries has narrowed, adding that innovatio-driven growth has ceased to be  the prerogative of high income countries but all.

For effective implementation of Policy, she said the Ministry had taken strategic steps which include: creating awareness, developing monitoring indicators, garnering state level cooperation/collaboration, and ensuring critical stakeholder participation.

For her, it is extremely apt that Nigeria as an emerging/developing economy has innovation at the front and centre of its Science and Technology policy.

While emphasizing the importance of coordination in the implementation of ST&I policy, she said there is need to galvanize all the efforts and establish a vibrant collaboration between the states and federal systems, private sector, academia and industry among public.