An expert on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Mr. Micheal Ale, has recommended urgent and robust boost in industrialization for Nigerian’s economy recovery from possible recession.
He highlighted steps towards boosting industrialisation while noting that the emergence of the pandemic has made the latest innovations of robots and artificial intelligence inevitable products for the nation to patronize.
Ale, who is the President of Waterwell, in a release made available to newsmen in Ado Ekiti, spoke on how Nigeria can maximise her potentials on industrialization by meeting the target of the SDGs 2020, urging the country to key into the global policy on SDGs.
The development expert,who identified the policy of knowledge economy as key to meaningful development, lamented that Nigeria is far behind the developed nations in this regard.
He called on the government to address the root cause of underdevelopment, which he said was caused by inadequate attention to the importance of academic researches.
“We need to now go back to the root cause of our underdevelopment. While watching a documentary about Nigerian agriculture, I saw rice mill being operated and I know in China now rice mill is being operated by robots.
” So invariably, Covid 19 is the beginning of another revolution in industrialization, because we will start talking about chips, robots, and the likes, all these we are still going to import and this is why the issue of knowledge comes in.
“How many of our universities have research outcomes to use. All these developed countries go to their universities, their businessmen can go to the universities and engage them in researches that would help their development.
“They sponsor such researches that can add value to their companies. It doesn’t have to be government alone. This is why I mentioned academics. We have only leveraged on agriculture, we have the pharmaceutical industry, right now, the Covid 19 issue has given us the great opportunity to revamp our industries, especially, the pharmaceutical industry.
Speaking about how to make Nigerian Universities hallmarks of industrialization, Ale said: “It is very achievable, we have the likes of Dangote my good friend, his foundation can go into research, and look into what can be done, you can pick on any university that you think focus on what your industry needs.
“Then you talk to the universities and give them grants for the research. I think the Nigerian government has tetfund and they are going into many research, what have they done with those research outcomes?.
