The National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) has lamented that more than 90 of the technology that Nigeria’s economy relies on is imported.
The Director-General of NOTAP, Dr. Danazumi Ibrahim, made the remark during a working visit by the Senate Committee on Science and Technology to the agency’s headquarters in Abuja, yesterday.
“More than 90 percent of technology that powers Nigeria’s economy is imported. There is no nation that is serious about development that will fold its hands and allow it like this,” the NOTAP DG said.
Dr. Ibrahim stated that despite Nigerian researchers being among the highest producers of paper publications in Africa, their efforts do not translate into economic value for the country owing to the lack of funding for research.
Our source of technology should be from our university, research institutions, and polytechnics which are expected to undertake credible research that will help us bring out technology that will empower the economy, unfortunately, like any other sector, the education sector is not well-funded and research and development are not well funded,” he said.
He said due to the low and weak funding, research and development get little attention in the country.
On her part, the Chairman of the Senate Committee, Uche Ekwunife, urged the agency to do more in generating revenue for the federal government as technology is now a driving force of economies.
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