Science, technology can solve our challenges, says Onu

Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, has called for more emphasis on technology to solve the challenges facing the country.

He listed the diversification and growth of the economy, reduction of poverty and illiteracy, job creation, revitalisation of the middle class, insecurity and corruption as challenges facing the country. The minister suggested that the challenges could be tackled by scientific and technological know-how.

Delivering the 2015 Post graduate lecture of the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT), the Minister, who was represented by the Executive Vice Chairman, NASENI, Prof Sanni Haruna, said as acquisition of knowledge had helped countries attain high standards of living, likewise its neglect could lead to decline of the influence of nations.

He spoke on the theme, “Post graduate training in Nigeria; Perspective for National Development.” Onu stated that it is the quality of post graduate students produced by tertiary institutions, equipped with the necessary technological skills that would help the country meet her challenges and improve productivity by moving the nation away from a consumer to a producer nation, thereby stimulating economic growth.

“As a blessed nation with fertile land and favourable weather conditions, it is clearly unacceptable that in the past we spent as much as one trillion naira annually on food importation. A nation that cannot feed her citizens is a country in trouble. Technology will help us feed ourselves, fight illiteracy, reduce poverty, create wealth, produce our needs locally, create new jobs and improve our capacity for export trade, thereby strengthening our economy through increased export earnings.

“Technology will also help us renew the Lake Chad, stop desert encroachment in the north, recover our land from erosion in the east, clean up the polluted mangrove swamps of the Niger Delta and finally put a stop to gas flaring. To preserve our environment is not only good for us but also good for our children.”