Prof. Olalekan Akinbo, Expert Supervisor at the Centre of Excellence in Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI), African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), said STI can facilitate Nigeria’s economic growth if the right policies were put in place.
Akinbo spoke in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on how Nigeria can harness STI for socioeconomic development.
He said such policies should stimulate the implementation of STI by encouraging innovations, and that the indigenous technology should be capable of addressing the specific needs of different clusters within the socioeconomic groups in the country.
He advised that for STI to impact national development, the government should also grant incentives to companies in order to boost their interest in investing in indigenous inventions and innovations in the country.
He said it was important that tax cuts be granted to industries to motivate them to target specific indigenous inventions and innovations that might not necessarily be meant for international but national markets.
“By doing so, businesses shall understand that the returns on investment would not be global, but locally driven.
“They will also know that the amount of tax they pay for innovations they commercialize would be Nigerian focused, that Nigerians would benefit when it impacts their socioeconomic growth and wellbeing.
“This is very critical because, in most of these industries, it is the tax levied on inventions and innovations, or on infrastructure, that would either motivate or discourage them from investing for profitability,’’ Akinbo said.
He reiterated that if tax cuts were given and industries saw the benefits as not accruing to the global market but targeted at meeting local challenges and helping the socio-economic growth of the country, they would be willing to invest.
“Government should also create an enabling environment that supports STI by building a sustainable infrastructure that can help Upstarts and those inventions that are not coming from a conventional proof of concept.
“They should be those that are coming to meet the needs of individuals, the needs of a specific group, and the yearnings at the grassroots,’’ he said.
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The NEPAD Expert said that such innovations were need-driven and that if the infrastructure that could facilitate such innovations were in place, it would be easier to impact the well-being of ordinary Nigerians.
He also advised that the government should put in place institutions that are focused on technology upgrades, meaning innovations that have been proven to meet the needs of the people and their scalability.
Akinbo urged that to harness the benefits of STI for socioeconomic growth, the government should take local advantage that innovation could bring to a particular environment into consideration.
According to him, the government should focus policies on such environments that had beneficial prospects that would enrich the lives of the people there.
“What I’m saying is that there are products that can easily be developed in an environment where the raw materials are locally sourced, and this would automatically cut off the cost of transportation.
“ Innovations that use technologies where raw materials are locally sourced should be located in that environment, which would now become the hub where the industry can develop that innovation to a scalable commercial level.
“Products developed from the innovations would then be transported across the country where the raw materials are not available, but the finished product can benefit the people of other geographical locations,’’ he said.
The STI Expert also underscored the need for good infrastructures such as good road connectivity that would allow seamless transportation, and rail depending on how massive the production was.
He said the government should also make water readily available to be used for developing the innovations, adding that these were what the government needed to provide as further incentives for industries.
Akinbo also mentioned financial security and protection of the intellectual property rights of an innovator as important areas government must take cognizance of in making STI work for the benefit of ordinary Nigerians.
