As Nigeria gradually slides into an
economic recession, the effects of her industrial and technological
backwardness can vividly be seen as almost nothing works at the moment.
There has never been a more required time than now for a technological
and industrial revolution.
Universities were established basically
for two reasons. First and primarily for research and second, for
knowledge dissemination. It is indisputable that Nigerians are one of
the smartest people in the world. We go and do exploits wherever they
are found but unfortunately, most research done by universities, never
get to see the light of implementation. Perhaps it is apposite to share a
personal experience: briefly after my undergraduate studies, while
interning as an algorithm designer and program debugger at the Centre of
Excellence in software engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University,
Ile-Ife, I met a couple of students at the software lab seeking some
assistance. They were developing a robot that uses sensors to learn
about the environment and then make decisions based on information
gathered overtime. At the end, the robot was able to navigate the entire
laboratory and perform some other tasks. Those students put in for an
international robotics competition but didn’t go far since they were
competing with people with more sophisticated robots and they had done
theirs with the little and insufficient resources at their disposal.
My point is; in a laboratory somewhere
in Ile-Ife, a group of students developed a robot with the same
principle that drives Google’s new brand of self-driving cars and no one
cared. For my undergraduate thesis, I worked on fraud detection in
debit cards using the Hidden Markov model. I had spent a year and a half
working on this project and I had spent a lot of money and energy too. I
came out with a very good grade and also with an award as the best
final year project in the department; but guess where this wonderful
research of mine ended up? Probably somewhere under the staircase of my
department or in some cabinet where it must be gathering dust. That
project was gone and never to be heard of anymore. This was a work that
came up with a solution to detect fraudulent debit card transactions on
the internet. I could go on and on about research works that were
heavily funded but end up never being considered for implementation. Our
universities are being underutilized and researches are being wasted.
If the government cared about as much as half of the researches carried
out in the universities, Nigeria will drastically shoot up the ladder.
Nigeria’s major problem is not
corruption. Her basic and primary problem is the absence of a structure
in all her sectors. In short, there is no nation in the world that is
free of corruption. The best that can be done is to block loopholes and
create a structure. When there is an independent judicial system and
there is a structure in all of the sectors, to steal little will be so
difficult and frustrating that public office holders will lose interest.
If change is really going to come into Nigeria, we need just three
things; Innovative minds, electricity and the internet. These three
things are key in the change process. Computerizing most of these things
and allowing public access to some government agencies’ transactions
will increase accountability as more than one person will have access to
records and transactions.
Nigeria’s greatest asset is her
population and the incredible number of intelligent people she has.
Inventions should be encouraged in Nigeria. There is no reason why
Nigeria shouldn’t be growing at a rate of at least 10% per year. I
would suggest the ministry of Science and Technology be overhauled to
ensure that Nigerian inventions don’t just go into a waste or a ministry
of innovation be set up. Nigeria spends a lot of money every year on
pilgrimages leaving one in wonder as to why a person’s individual faith
should be the business of a country. Instead of pumping so much money
into pilgrimages, that money can be pumped into the ministry of science
and technology where researches carried out by universities, students
and maybe even private individuals can actually be put to use and
inventions can be disseminated tactically to the public. By doing such,
innovation will be encouraged and things will begin to change.
Nigeria’s electricity problem is a
combination of multiple issues with bureaucracy, investment and
management. The government of Nigeria is still interfering in the
business of the companies even though they have been privatized. A lot
of investment is still required in the that sector. Most of the
electricity companies were sold to politicians who had no experience in
energy. Power generation is generally not a very profitable business and
it requires a lot of investments. In short, let me suggest a way to
solve Nigeria’s electricity problem though it might sound crude but I
know it would work. Throw an open competition to Nigerian universities.
Let the competition span for over two years the results will be
shocking. They would be able to identify a cheaper way of generating
electricity, come up with better transmission designs and low cost
materials. Also, I would suggest that states should be allowed to
generate their power by themselves.
Instead of leaving the entire county to
thrive on less than 3000MW of electricity, states should be allowed to
produce their own power with the resources they have. China generates
91,000MW from wind power only. Now that is a whole lot! According to the
National Meteorological map, everywhere in Nigeria is windy but some
areas are windier than others. The north has 6m/s of wind potential
while the south ranges between 4m/s to 2.5m/s. All that potential should
not be wasted. If states are allowed to produce their own forms of
electricity, we would be able to generate excess and forget all about
generating power.
As we speak, the future of the coming
generation is at risk in Nigeria as almost nothing works at the moment.
The time for the much needed change and transformation is now. If we
want change, we have to go through the intentional and painful process
of sacrifices. Nigeria urgently needs a technological and industrial
revolution if anything will change at all. If it has worked somewhere
else in the world, it will work in Nigeria.
No comments:
Post a Comment