Tales of breakthroughs, hurdles for science, tech in 2020

Many breakthroughs happened in the country’s science and technology sector in 2020.

Over 2,500 research products by Nigerian start-ups and researchers have now flooded the Nigerian markets.

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Many of them were actually taken to the market by some private sector players who partnered with government agencies to commercialise the research prototypes.

Some of the start-ups were trained and nurtured by the National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI), an agency of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, said universities, research institutions, industry and government must relate with one another to encourage commercialisation and free flow of information for the good of the nation.

The federal government will deploy appropriate technologies to help surmount the security challenges confronting the country, Onu promised in 2020.

He said appropriate technologies would be deployed in the area of intelligence gathering, monitoring of suspects and development of platforms to effectively fight insecurity in Nigeria.

Even as the country slipped into recession at the tail end of 2020, the federal government reiterated its determination to utilize space science and technology to improve the living standards of Nigerians as well as accelerate the pace of socio-economic development.

One of the efforts made by the government in the science sector was its agreement with Israel to develop methanol fuel production in Nigeria.

The methanol fuel production technology would expand the chemical industry value chain, preserve our environment as well as add value to our huge gas resources in the country, the government said.

A committee on COVID-19 herbal remedies and natural compounds was inaugurated in a bid to find a home-grown solution for the viral disease.

The government in July launched a diagnostic kit, RNASwift, for the identification of coronavirus’ causal agents.

The kit, which was designed, developed and validated by Nigerian scientists, holds huge potentials for the country’s plan at scaling up testing for COVID-19, the acting Director General of National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Prof Alex Akpa, whose agency produced the kit, said at the launch.

“The diagnostic kit is a product of cutting-edge biotechnology, which involves the exploitation of molecular biology to design, develop and validate a cost-effective but yet very top-of-the-range kit for COVID-19 testing,” Prof Akpa said.