Of STI and the newly-fangled Ministry!, By Aniebo Nwamu
It’s not strange that Nigeria has regularly ranked among the lowest on the Global Innovation Index. It is equally at the bottom of innovation achievers in Africa. Alas, things are not likely to change, so long as it remains a consumer nation and lacks infrastructure, proper management and political stability. Innovation? Our lawmakers rejected Innoson vehicles but gathered millions of scarce dollars to import vehicles made in Europe.
While welcoming the new Ministry of STI, I wish the new nomenclature would direct attention to genuine innovators. If it doesn’t, it would compete in popularity with the more familiar STI . Though thehere is not transmitted sexually, it is spread hereditarily! Afflicted Nigerians love high-sounding but empty titles – His Excellency, High Chief, Honourable, Professor, Engineer, Alhaji, Pastor etc. – yet few have achieved anything innovative or extraordinary.
For innovation to thrive in Nigeria, government and government officials like Onu should do one thing: Get out of the way of innovators. If they could, they should stop killing the dreams of entrepreneurs with parochial thinking and multiple taxation. The S&T Ministry presently has dozens of agencies with overlapping functions under it. When you read the mission statements of such agencies, you think they provide lifelines for innovators.
Truly, Nigeria is filled with innovators. What it lacks is an environment for them to blossom. Those resident in the country have built a few innovative products and services, but they don’t owe their achievements to the government or its agencies. If the Ministry of STI wants to work, it should start by arresting brain drain. This country is haemorrhaging profusely, as talented individuals have chosen well-run countries as their ultimate destinations. Our best scientists, doctors, nurses, researchers, footballers and dons live overseas. We’ve put them to flight by our insincerity, and the younger ones have sworn to emigrate or die trying to do so.
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