President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday said his
administration’s goal of ensuring safety of lives and property as well as
encouraging economic stability could best be achieved if the country embraced
science and technology.
Buhari made the
submission in his remarks at a meeting of the National Research and Innovation
Council at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The President said he was
convinced that Nigeria must accord priority to science and technology if it
must take its rightful place among the leading economies in the world.
He said, “Nigeria’s
vision of becoming one of the 20 largest economies in the world by the year
2020 is only attainable when science, technology and innovation are fully
integrated into our national socio-economic development process. That process
will now be fast-tracked with the coming on board of this council.
“I wish to assure this
council of my determination and commitment to ensure that, as a nation, we will
invest appropriately in science, technology and innovation in order to
guarantee our competitiveness both continentally and globally.
“Our goal to secure our
nation, grow our economy, create jobs and fight crime can best be achieved if
we embrace science and technology.”
Buhari expressed the hope
that the nation’s research and innovation output should be measured by number
of intellectual property such as patents granted and not only by the number of
articles published in scholarly journals.
By this action, he hoped
that Nigeria would become a centre of discoveries, inventions and innovation in
all fields of science and technology.
He also expressed the
belief that before long, Nigeria should be in a position to produce Nobel
laureates in the sciences.
The President explained
that the NRIC would be geared towards coordinating and streamlining the
nation’s research and development activities as well as fostering innovation.
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