TheDirector General, National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Dr Dan-Azumi Mohammed Ibrahim has said the Federal Government remained determined to deepen local content by supporting local scientists and technologists to produce what would be consumed in Nigeria rather than depend heavily in imported solutions.
In an exclusive interview with Daily Sun in Abuja on the sidelines of the recently-concluded 23rd Nigerian Economic Summit (NES), Ibrahim said part of government’s efforts at deepening the utilization of local technologies was to help Nigerians protect their inventions, assist inventors access foreign markets and link them with foreign investors who can support them with needed funds.
He said: “Before any research development efforts goes for commercialisation, you have to protect it. That protection is through patent. If you do not protect it, somebody can take it and make money. A researcher cannot commercialise his efforts and development. The private sector before they come must ensure that nobody has any right over it. “Secondly, some research and development efforts, you ask yourself, are they really needed? You have to take a research and development as a means of solving problems. Like the Ebola outbreak and HIV AIDS, if you can have a research and development resources that can completely cure it, I’m telling you it is ready for commercialisation, because there are people that are HIV positive and they can pay any price to get cured”, he said.
The NOTAP boss also called for stronger border security and the porous nature make it easier for cheap and inferior products come into the country.
“If we continue to allow them, those products that are produced in the country may not compete favourably with those ones abroad, and we need to patronize what is produced in Nigeria. If we patronise what is produced in Nigeria, the producers would now expand, refine and improve.
“The reality is that recession has come in and it is giving us opportunity. It is not everything that we can afford to import. By the time local producers get all the support and we consume what we produce, foreign goods will not be commercially attractive. That is the way to go”, he added.
Ibrahim also revealed that NOTAP has begun bringing in technology experts to train Nigerian researchers on how to write attractive and bankable proposals so that they can access funds needed for improvement.
He also said there must be a linkage between industries and the researchers to ensure researched addressed vital challenges.
“If industries want to undertake a research, let them tailor it to solve a problem and then it can be commercialized. That is the way to go”, he noted.
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