The Academic Staff Union of Research Institutions (ASURI), has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to give quick assent to the National Research Innovation Council (NRIC) Bill 2019 recently passed by the National Assembly.
Dr Theophilus Ndubuaku, General Secretary of the union, stated that Nigeria has been operating with zero budgetary allocation to research, stressing that once signed into law, the bill will increase Nigeria’s research capacity and improve its technological base.
“He said Nigerian career researchers are the poorest cadre of public servants as they must devote over half of their salaries for research if they must advance in their profession.
“The NRIC Bill 2019 provides for the institutional research and training funding mechanism and infrastructural development for RDIs in Nigeria,” he said.
The ASURI general secretary also expressed concern that most of the over 150 Nigerian Research and Development Institutions (RDIs) and centres, research and training activities are self-funded by researchers.
He added that to be promoted at every stage of their career, the researchers must acquire higher degrees and produce research publications.
“For so long, ASURI has agonized over and protested the exclusion of all Research and Development Institutions (RDIs), including Federal Colleges of Agriculture and Forestry, from TETfund.
“It has remained a glaring, ridiculous policy slipup for a nation that is desperate for a technological revolution to concentrate almost all available fund for research and extension in the universities when it is indisputable that they generate much less technology than research institutes.
“Concerted attempts by the 8th National Assembly to amend the TETfund Act to include the RDIs met with unpatriotic, vicious opposition and threats of industrial strikes by the benefactors of TETfund. The rest is history,” Dr Ndubuaku stated.
The National Assembly last year passed the bill to the President for assent but was returned to it over some grey areas.
Dr Ndubuaku said, “We would like you to note that the NRIC Bill is a component of the agreement reached by the FGN/Organized Labour 16-Man Technical Committee on Minimum Wage and Palliatives. The Committee recommended, in Section 1.9.30 of the report, the Establishment of a Tax Fund for Adequate and Consistent Funding of Research Institutes, Colleges of Agriculture and Forestry and Allied Institutions.”
He noted that the Palliative Committee deliberated rigorously on the socio-economic status and concluded that the neglect of research and Science and Technology (S&T) by successive Nigerian governments since independence was the underlying reason for the challenges of insecurity and other national malaise currently threatening to dismember the fabric of the nation.
