Lagos residents are not happy over what they termed “failure of waste management authorities in the state to live up to their responsibility” thereby resulting in them celebrating the Yuletide season in a filthy environment.
Correspondent Innocent Onoh captured their mood in parts of the metropolis.
The 55th meeting of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Council convened in Washington, DC, US, from December 18 to 20, 2018 at World Bank headquarters. Representatives of governments, international organisations, and civil society organisations (CSOs) attended the three-day meeting, which also included the 25th meeting of the Council for the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) and Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF). The meetings were preceded by a consultation with CSOs on December 17.
Naoko Ishii, GEF Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairperson, and Abdul Bakarr Salim, Sierra Leone, served as Co-Chairs for the meetings.
The GEF Council adopted the first Work Programme since the approval of the seventh replenishment of the GEF Trust Fund (GEF-7). The Work Programme comprised 18 projects in 25 recipient countries, and amounted to $157.8 million, including GEF project financing and Agency fees, and is expected to leverage $819.7 million in co-financing. In addition, the Council of the LDCF/SCCF adopted a Work Programme comprising six project concepts, with resources amounting to $45.85 million for the LDCF, including project grants and Agency fees.
The Council also discussed and approved several policies, guidelines and safeguards on measures aimed at enhancing the efficiency, accountability and transparency of the GEF. These measures included new policy procedures to speed up the preparation, endorsement, implementation, and closure of projects. A policy regarding improved access to information and revised environmental and social safeguards throughout the GEF project and programme cycle were also adopted.
The Council heard updates from representatives of the Conventions for which the GEF serves as a financial mechanism regarding recent and upcoming meetings, decisions and other relevant activities. The presentations by the Minamata Convention on Mercury, Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and Montreal Protocol prompted Council Members to reflect on the GEF’s unique role in integrating issues and generating synergies.
At the conclusion of the meetings, Council Members reviewed and approved the Joint Summaries of the Chairs for the GEF Council and LDCF/SCCF Council meetings.
The GEF was created in 1991 to formulate financing responses to the mounting concern in the preceding decade over global environmental problems. The GEF operated in a pilot phase until mid-1994. Negotiations to restructure the organisation were concluded at a GEF participants’ meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, in March 1994, where representatives of 73 countries agreed to adopt the GEF Instrument.
Nigeria’s National Coordination Group (NCG) for Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) was inaugurated at the National Parks Service headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday, December 18, 2018.
The core members of the KBA Partnership at global level are Birdlife International, Global Environment Facility (GEF), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds (RSPB), Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), Nature Serve, Conservation International, Amphibian Survival Alliance, Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), Global Wildlife Conservation and Rainforest Trust.
Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) have been recognised by 12 of the world’s leading conservation organisations as the currency for biodiversity conservation across the globe in an ambitious new partnership for nature. These sites include important habitats for plants and animal species in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. This feat was accomplished in September 2016.
Nigeria’s NCG is consists of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) as its Secretariat, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), A. P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute (APLORI), Federal Department of Forestry of the Ministry of Environment and the National Parks Service.
National Coordination Groups (NCGs) for KBAs are to primarily, coordinate the process to identify, document and delineate KBAs at the national level. Other responsibilities include promoting the conservation, management and protection of KBAs in Nigeria.
The Global Standard for the Identification of Key Biodiversity Areas (IUCN 2016) sets out globally standardised criteria for the identification of KBAs worldwide. The KBA Partnership and globally standardised criteria, will promote global conservation efforts by mapping internationally important sites and ensuring that scarce resources are directed to the most important places for nature. The impact of this vital conservation work will be improved by promoting targeted investment in conservation action at priority sites.
The partnership will work with governments, national and international agencies, organisations and individuals to implement the global KBA programme in a transparent and inclusive way.
New forestry data released recently shows that, in 2018, Brazil has already met – albeit through actions in its forestry sector alone – its overall pre-2020 commitment to reduce emissions by 36-38% nationally. These actions are said to have delivered a dramatic 1.2-billion-ton emissions reduction in 2018 alone.
The data, which was released on Tuesday, December 11, 2018 in Katowice, Poland during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP24), also shows Brazil in 2018 has met its pre-2020 commitment to reduce CO2 emissions from forestry by 60%.
“This result is a powerful and timely reminder that even developing countries facing economic and social challenges can still deliver on their pre-2020 commitments through strong and targeted actions,” Brazil’s Minister of the Environment, Edson Duarte, said in Katowice.
The data – based on a conservative calculation of carbon absorption by Brazilian forests – shows a remarkable turnaround for the role of the Brazilian forestry sector, which in the 14 years to 2004 accounted for 75% of Brazil’s overall CO2 emissions in the country to now absorbing 538 million tons of CO2 from the atmosphere in 2018.
The 1.28-billion-ton reduction in CO2 emissions in the Brazilian forestry sector between August 2017 and July 2018 (relative to its 2020 emissions projections set in 2009, which formed the basis of its pre-2020 commitment on forestry), consists of:
The above data for removal of CO2 through land management measures are said to be conservative because, according to the Brazil government, they exclude a significant amount of Brazilian forests which falls outside of the three land categories, as well as significant areas of planted forests and recovery of native vegetation.
Nigeria now has in place a plan to promote its REDD+ agenda, thanks to a World Bank and Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) promoted initiative that was officially rounded up a couple of weeks ago.
REDD+ implies reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries.
At a daylong event held in Abuja on Thursday, December 20, 2018, a cross section of stakeholders gathered to discuss and validate a draft report on Nigeria’s REDD+ Strategy prepared by Messrs. Gotosearch.com Ltd. and University of the West England (UWE), the consortium that was engaged to carry out the assignment.
The validation workshop was also held to enrich the technical contents of the report and give it a national outlook and acceptability.
“This is a document that Nigeria will be using to engage with the international community for the purposes of how to bring benefits that are linked to our efforts in emissions reduction, as well as our sustainable forest management approach. If this strategy is not very well crafted and we don’t capture the elements and the options that we intend to use in engaging, then we are taking a wrong step,” submitted Dr. Moses Ama, National Coordinator, Nigeria REDD+ Programme, during the official opening of the meeting.
Former Director of Forestry in the Federal Ministry of Environment, Philip Bankole, said: “We all know the problems in our forest reserves. So, whatever is written here are common issues familiar to us.
“It is a good development that the REDD+ Programme has gotten to this stage. It started some years ago and, despite a change of leadership, it is still going very strong because we have competent hands in place. Whatever comes out here today is to our own benefit. It is a national service. This is a policy document and thus it has a lot of bearing on what happens to our forest and government policies in the future.
Prof Olukayode Oladipo, Team Leader, Gotosearch.com, urged participants to feel free to criticise the document as, according to him, there is always a room for improvement on every document notwithstanding its quality.
Director of Forestry, David Andrew-Adejo, while declaring open the event, congratulated the REDD+ team “which includes the secretariat and the team that works with them on the field because all of you collectively have been contributing to the successes achieved by the REDD+ secretariat.”
He added: “Nigeria should start assessing the financing incentives that the REDD+ is trying to achieve as its end point. The benefit will only come if we have a good strategy developed by REDD. It takes care of how the villager that you asked not to cut his tree because of X-metric tonnes of carbon that it stores, and the villager does not eat X-metric tonnes. He just wants to cut it and use to cook or sell it. So, your strategy will be able to give that man an assurance that if he leaves that tree alone, he will be able to do something else that will enable him live the normal life he was living to the extent that he would be the one that will be your champion.”
The REDD+ Strategy report has sections like “Nigeria’s REDD+ Strategic Directions”, “Basis for Nigeria’s REDD+ Programme”, “Analysis of Strategic Options”, “Governance of REDD+ in Nigeria”, “Monitoring and Reporting of Nigeria’s REDD+ Implementation”, and “Action Plan for the Implementation of the Strategy”.
At the close of the day, the report was eventually approved for validation subject to the reflection of observered inputs and corrections by participants who delibrated in groups.
REDD+ is a voluntary initiative established under the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) with several operationally significant but non-legally binding decisions adopted by the Conference of the Parties. Other relevant initiatives include the UNREDD Programme, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), and the Forest Investment Programme (FIP), each of which has its own requirements.
The United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (or UN-REDD Programme) is a collaborative programme of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), created in 2008 in response to the UNFCCC decisions on the Bali Action Plan and REDD at COP13 held in 2007.
The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) is a global partnership focused on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, forest carbon stock conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon sotcks (REDD+).
FCPF is made up of two separate, but complementary, funds that support countries in their REDD+ preparations – the Readiness Fund and Carbon Fund. The Readiness fund assists participant countries prepare for REDD+ by developing policies and systems, in particular national REDD+ strategies; developing reference emission levels (RELs); designing measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems; and establishing national management arrangements, including safeguards, for REDD+.
The Forest Investment Programme (FIP) is a targeted programme of the Strategic Climate Fund (SCF), which is one of two funds within the framework of the Climate Investment Funds (CIF).
The FIP supports developing countries’ efforts to reduce deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and promotes sustainable forest management that leads to emission reductions and the protection of carbon reservoirs.
Nigeria needs not less than $337 billion to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from 2019 to 2022, the UN Support Plan for the Sahel has estimated.
The cost of implementing the SDGs in Nigeria, according to the plan is $80.65 billion in 2019, $82.83 billion in 2020, $85.07 billion in 2021 and $87.37 billion in 2022.
On the investment needs in the Sahel, the plan reported the cost of implementing the SDGs in the Sahel is projected to be between $140.25 billion and $157.39 billion per year between 2019 and 2022 in the 10 Sahelian countries.
The plan said the 10 countries under the UN Integrated Strategy for the Sahel (UNISS) needed an average of $148.7 billion annually to implement the SDGs or $594.8 billion from 2018 to 2022.
The overarching goal of the Plan, targeting 10 countries; namely Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal, is to scale up efforts to accelerate shared prosperity and lasting peace in the region.
The Plan covering the period of 2098 to 2030, would help implement identified priorities to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the African Union Agenda 2063, the report said.
The plan, however, stated that public-sector funding gap, on average, remained at 36.2 per cent of the required resources. UNISS was approved by the Security Council in 2013 and is a part of a preventive and integrated approach to strengthening governance, security and development in the region.
The plan noted that the Sahel is as much a land of opportunities as it is of challenges, and it is blessed with abundant human, cultural and natural resources, offering tremendous potential for rapid growth.
The plan aims at mobilising public resources and triggering private investments in the 10 countries in support of ongoing efforts and initiatives by governments, international and regional organisations, among other partners.
It said in terms of natural resources, the Sahel is one of the richest regions in the world and is abundant with oil, natural gas, gold, phosphates, diamonds, copper, iron ore, bauxite, biological diversity and precious woods, among many other assets.
These natural endowments offer immense value for economic diversification, value-chain development and livelihoods, the UN plan said.
The Sahel is also endowed with more potential for renewable energy such as solar and wind than other regions of the world, the UN plan showed.
Its solar energy potential translates to about 13.9 billion kilowatt hours per year compared to the world’s electricity consumption of 20 million kilowatt hours per year, according to 2016 data.
The Sahel is also the most youthful region of the world with 64.5 per cent of youth aged less than 25 years, meaning investments in education and vocational training could yield a demographic dividend.
By Prudence Arobani
The International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) has secured a €7 million funding from the European Union (EU) towards the fight against Fall Armyworms (FAW) in the Eastern Africa region.
Through the European Commission Directorate for International Cooperation and Development (DEVCO), the EU said that the money would be used in the management of FAW in Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
“Over the past 10 years, the EU and ICIPE have formed a solid partnership towards strengthening agriculture as a core and effective component in Africa’s development,” Myra Bernardi, Head of Section Agriculture, Job Creation and Resilience Delegation of the EU to Kenya, said.
She said that the new initiative would enhance livelihoods, resilience and food and nutritional security of smallholder maize growers in eastern Africa through better preparedness and eco-friendly management of the fall armyworm specifically, and invasive species in general.
“We are delighted for this latest support, which will enable us to build on our early results to create a comprehensive package on fall armyworm management, and to work with a range of partners to ensure that the solutions are delivered to communities, to avert the very real threat posed by the pest,” Segenet Kelemu, Director General of ICIPE, said during the ceremony.
Kelemu noted that ICIPE and the EU have enjoyed a productive and strategic partnership on various critical issues relevant to Africa such as bees, animal health and food and nutritional security in general over the past 10 years.
She said that, globally, invasive species are now considered the second most important threat to nature, due to their severe and cross cutting impact on ecosystems, human and animal health, infrastructure, economic and cultural resources.
Such species threaten food and nutritional security by colonising valuable land, negatively impacting agricultural and livestock systems thus reducing domestic supply and restricting international trade as a result of quarantine issues.
They also place human, animal and environmental health at risk through food-borne and vector-transmitted diseases, as well as the effects of often harmful chemical pesticides used in their control.
Further, invasive species destabilise ecosystems, for instance by displacing beneficial local species, and by causing irreparable damage to biodiversity, and contributing to habitat loss.
Economies also suffer due to the significant financial investments required to respond to invasions, and to conduct inspection, monitoring, prevention, control or eradication of invasive pests.
In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), one of the most susceptible regions, the list of invasive species is long and diverse; their destruction often horrendous.
Since January 2016, the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), a very destructive pest that is endemic to the Americas, has been devastating maize and other crops in at least 43 African countries, placing at risk the food and nutrition security, and indeed the very livelihoods, of more than 300 million people.
The larval stage of the fall armyworm feeds on more than 80 plant species, including maize, sorghum, rice, wheat, sugarcane, as well as a variety of horticultural crops thus threatening food and nutritional security, trade, household incomes and overall economies.
ICIPE is promoting the use of push and pull technology that they have been using over the years in controlling stem borers, that is a key pest of cereal crops across most of Africa, and the parasitic striga weeds.
Push-pull involves intercropping cereal crops with insect repellent legumes such as Desmodium genus and planting an attractive forage plant such as Napier or Brachiaria grasses as a border around this intercrop.
The intercrop emits a blend of compounds that repel (push) away stem borer moths, while the border plants emit semi-chemicals that are attractive (pull) to the pests.
DEVCO’s support includes 20 percent contribution from the Centre’s core funds by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).
By Duncan Mboyah
Edo State governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has been tasked to bring the Okomu Oil Palm Company to the book over the allegation of land grabbing, environmental violation and livelihood destruction by the forest-bearing communities of Okpamakhin, located across Uhunmwode, Ovia North East and Owan West local government areas (LGAs) of the state.
The call was made at Sabongida-Ora, the headquarters of Owan West LGA, by the Women Wing of the Coalition Against Landgrabbing and Deforestation (CALD) during a recent street protest, which for hours hindered vehicular movement in the town.
In a letter dated December 10, 2018 to Governor Obaseki and jointly signed by Mrs. Joan Obazee and Mrs. Bose Eruaga, Coordinator and Deputy Coordinator of the group respectively, with three others, the civil society group said to be propelled by the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) stated: “We are also, once more, registering our displeasure about the shoddy and lukewarm ways your government has been handling the affront by Okomu PLC in its slipshod operation in Edo communities, particularly the disrespect for the revocation order by the Edo State Government on most of our forest land and the flouting of a mandatory directive from the Federal Ministry of Environment to the company to carry out an all-inclusive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study before the land could be given to it.
“And where the said revocation order of about 8,000 hectares of the land render Okomu PLC’s grabbing illegal, the EIA directives by the Federal Ministry of Environment also invalidate the already revoked land and others outside of it, which the company has grabbed and more that it is bent of acquiring illegally.”
The women protesters, who were mostly cladded in black attires, also alleged that the Okomu multinational company, while wresting their land, brought the bulldozers to clear the over 14,000 hectares of the high forest, crops belonging to poor farmers, their environment, sources of water and worship and their entire livelihood. The letter also accused the company of bringing men in soldier and police uniforms to enforce the bulldozing, in a threat to maim or kill them, should they oppose the forceful takeover of their landed inheritance.
Whilst reminding Governor Obaseki that it was the Executive Council of the immediate past government under ex-Governor Adams Oshiomhole inheritance, in which Mr. Obaseki served as Economic Adviser, and an integral part of it, the protesters said that they are at a loss that the Governor went on to officially commission the same project premised on a land that has been declared illegal by a subsisting revocation order. They also frowned at the Governor’s hesitation to respond to series of protest and petition letters brought to him on the issue by the 35 communities across the three local governments, who are dependent on the rainforest land.
The group further alleged that the 8,000 hectares alleged land was published in the Edo State Government of Nigeria Official Gazette of November 5, 2015 (page 48-50). Reasons for revocation were backed with an empowering State Forestry Law, that the land meant for regeneration was commercialised (sold) to second and third parties and not in the public’s interests. The illegal transaction, it also alleged, was between the Iyayi Group of Companies, who had gainfully logged the land for 50 years and it was thereafter given to Iyayi freely for regeneration. Iyayi was the middleman that sold to A & Hatman Ltd and to Okomu PLC, with billions of Naira exchanging hands.
“On May 14, 2016 after the revocation and refusal of Okomu PLC to vacate the forestland, ex-Governor Adams Oshiomhole again made a confirmation press statement that the land stood revoked and Okomu PLC should vacate the it. Governor Oshiomhole also issued a follow-up letter dated April 18, 2016 (Ref: GH/COS.58/156) to the Okomu PLC, warning the firm to vacate the land” It further alleged.
Okomu Oil Company was also alleged to have abandoned the directives of the Environment Minister’s, via a letter dated September 22, 2015, (Ref: No. FMEnv/EA/ 123:271? Vol.1/28) stating that the “Interim EIA Approval” for three months validity for preliminary development activities on the project only; and that the EIA should be carried out to its logical conclusion, and with continuous consultation with relevant stakeholders.
“Whereas the company had started bulldozing our forest land in January 2014 barely three years after destroying the land upon which the EIA was to be based. Incredibly, the same company had belated in December 2016 emerged with a concocted EIA draft report, which was conducted behind our communities, the primary stakeholder,” said, the Women Wing of the group.
“But we have been pushed to a despairing living by an overbearing multinational company, whose obnoxious operational policies has seemingly arrogated to itself a sovereignty within a nationhood that is supposedly independent. And we are determined to regain our possession, only along the principles of constructive engagement and non-violence”.
Nevertheless, the group made what is called its renewed call on the Edo State Government to “summarily quit the blundering Okomu PLC from our land and get it to book for violating the Nigerian laws”.
By Tony Erha
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)-assisted Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) says it will sustain its campaign for Ebonyi State farmers to engage in dry season farming.
Mr Sunday Ituma, the State Programme Coordinator (SPC) of IFAD-VCDP, made this known on Friday, December 28, 2018 in Abakaliki, the state capital, during a knowledge-sharing forum with benefitting farmers to evaluate the programme’s activities in the state in 2018.
Ituma said that one-season farming practice was no longer in vogue and profitable, stressing that dry season farming had commenced in some areas in the state with encouraging results.
“Dry season farming is practiced in areas surrounded by water bodies, especially those along the Cross River axis in Ikwo, Izzi among others,” he said.
According to the SPC, the programme is working well to provide irrigation facilities for farmers despite being capital-intensive.
“We are still with the design of the irrigation infrastructure to be cited at Ezillo, Ishiellu Local Government Area though the cost is not what the programme can handle.
“We, however, have other options which include sharing the cost with the state government or funding it in the additional phase of the project which we are hopeful will come,” he said.
He said that the programme was however still exploring other areas to ensure that adequate water was provided for farmers to embark on dry season farming.
“The water-level in Ebonyi is low in contrast to some areas such as Niger where one can drill less-than 10 metres and source water to sustain his agricultural productions.
“We intend to test-run this tube-well technology because the usage of boreholes is hard for farming,” he said.
Ituma said that the various interventions of IFAD-VCDP in the state such as the establishment of a seed laboratory for improved yield of farmers’ crops.
“This seed laboratory will ensure that farmers stop recycling their harvests as seeds because it continues to diminish their yields instead of increasing it.
“We have also intervened in areas of infrastructures such as roads and market stalls, processing centres, aggregation centres and provision of inputs.
“We have also directly supported farmers with matching grants and provision of solar powered boreholes in six locations,” he said.
Mrs Cynthia Edeze, the best IFAD-VCDP youth farmer in Ebonyi, said that she greatly benefited from IFAD-VCDP’s interventions which improved her farming practices.
“In 2017, I harvested 2, 000 bundles of cassava from an average of two hectares and sold 1, 500 bundles of which I sold 1,200 bundles to IFAD-VCDP.
“I cultivated three hectares in 2018 but sold each of the 1, 500 bundles for N1, 300 and realised a total of N1.9 million,” she said.
The other beneficiaries of IFAD-VCDP intervention also shared their success stories as the participants highlighted areas the programme should improve upon.
The participants also received tutorials from top IFAD-VDCP officials, insurance and other financial institutions, among others.
By Chukwuemeka Opara
One of the inspiring and promising remarks of Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, the Minister of Science and Technology at the end of 2018 get-together in Abuja recently, was that the Federal Government would intensify efforts at strengthening home-grown technology for the purpose of making the country self-reliant.
Further to his remarks, he restated that the ministry had inaugurated National Strategy for Competitiveness in Raw Materials, Products and Services, to ensure sustainability.
He said that Nigeria would save N3.6 trillion from overall import in five years and create more than four million jobs with the implementation of the strategy.
“It is our intention to ensure national capacity to locally-produced acceptable high-quality raw materials, products and services.
“We have successfully formulated Nigeria’s new National Policy on Leather Production; the first of its kind in the history of our nation since independence in 1960.
“This will fast track sustainable development of leather technology that will help to boost industrialisation and enhance growth in our domestic economy.
“By deploying resources to commercialise research findings, new products and service will be created for new jobs, it will reduce poverty and improve the quality of lives of Nigerians.
“It will also help in building strong and resilient domestic economy that is competitive and sustainable’’, Onu said.
Onu also observed that the Presidential Order Number 5 had opened new opportunities for Nigerian professionals to arrest capital flight, strengthen local capacity and promote local manpower development for the good the nation.
“The ministry successfully formulated high nutrient density biscuit for the children to complement school feeding programme of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
“This will further nurture our young ones with adequate nutritional requirements that will enable them to become productive citizens for sustainable development,’’ he said.
He said the ministry had created a strong platform for the development of indigenous technology, noting that the number of patents secured with the assistance of the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), had risen to 54 as against six in 2015 when he became the minister.
He also said that the ministry had progressed to an advanced stage on the local production of solar power electronic-voting solution with cloud-based collection of election results capability.
“Solar electronic voting solution will further enhance e-voting and help Nigeria in the conduct of free, fair and credible elections.
“The ministry had also recorded a breakthrough by successfully deploying genetic engineering technique in production of two varieties of cotton that are high-yielding and resistant to devastating attack of worms.
“The technique will increase cotton production in the country, as well as reactivate textile industries that used to be the second largest employer of labour in the 1960s and 1970s,’’ he said.
In the light of the government’s commitment to growing and sustaining home-grown technology for self-reliance, the Nigerian Academy of Science, called on the Federal Government to allocate one per cent of the annual budget to Research and Development.
Prof. Oye Ibidapo-Obe, the former president of the academy, observed that no nation could attain greatness without science, technology and innovation.
“Increase in financial support towards research activities will advance the nation in a sustainable manner.
“Investing in human resources is also essential to expand the knowledge frontier to move the nation forward.
“Human resources development is the aggregate value of comfort to life, through agriculture and food security, rural development, water and environment, education, health, transportation and economy, among others.
“Researchers in developing countries should therefore focus primarily on aspects of knowledge expansion that relate to human welfare.
“The purpose of research, especially in science and technology, is to expand the knowledge frontier through investment in human capital and thereby innovating research for technology innovations is essential,’’ he said.
Further to this advice, Mr Bitrus Nabasu, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, urged relevant stakeholders to continue their support to the government to ensure that various research findings were converted into products and services.
He observed that there were strong signs that technology could do for Nigeria what it had done for China, South Korea, India and the U.S., among other countries.
“I will like to appreciate the minister for his effort at repositioning the ministry to serve as the bedrock of economic growth in the nation’’, Nabasu said.
Similarly, some scientists called on the Federal Government to redouble its efforts in using science, technology and innovation for accelerated industrialisation for national development.
Dr Adeneye Talabi, the former Director, Technology Acquisition and Adaption, Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, said that there should be constant improved financing of scientific research works for advancement of indigenous technology.
He said that such efforts would make the nation to be less-dependent on the developed countries in many sectors of the economy.
According to him, human resources and the abundant natural resources of the country ought to be properly harnessed for development.
Dr Femi Aluko of Department of Community Health, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, said that proper spending on research would enhance home-grown technology to a reasonable level.
According to him, such effort will advance Nigeria to become a crucial global competitor in science and technology among developing countries.
Insisting that the nation needed technological inputs to really excel, Aluko said that Nigeria ought to deepen efforts in research and development to catch up with some Asian countries that were once in the same level of technology.
“The Asian Tigers such as Indonesia, India, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia and China among, others were once on the same level of technology development with Nigeria.
“But these countries have been making progress since 1960s in an impressive manner while Nigeria has remained stagnant,’’ he said.
By Gabriel Agbeja, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
