By Banji Ayoola
Science and innovation hold the key to eradicating poverty and ensuring sustainable development of Nigeria.
This is the position of the Vice Chancellor of Ondo State University of Science and Technology, Okitipupa, OSUSTECH, Prof Robert Ogunduyile, which he stated at the university’s Faculty of Science First Annual Conference.
Besides, he stressed that science and innovation are crucial for overcoming obstacles in the country towards finding new approaches which identify, define and confront global challenges.
In this regard, Ogunduyile said that the first annual Conference tagged “Sustainable Development through Scientific Innovations: Problems and Prospects”, was to help chart the way forward for Nigeria’s development.
While charging other faculties and centres in the institution to begin to replicate the idea, he said that the conference was packaged with a wide range of topics in relation to the sustainable development goals of the Nigerian government and global concern for development.
Noting that this cannot be achieved by government alone, he said :”Its achievement requires many different actors including the scientific community like OSUSTECH, to work together in an integrated manner by pooling together and harnessing our knowledge and expertise.”
The Vice Chancellor harped on the importance of the participation of leading scientists, technology experts and innovators in the discourse.
In his own contribution, Chairman of the occasion, a Fellow of the Chartered Association of International Accountants (FCIA), Sir Ayo Akingbule, called on Nigeria’s scientific community, including leading scientists, technology experts and the various universities of Technology to pull together their knowledge and expertise in an integrated manner to bail the country out of her underdevelopment .
He said that for Nigeria to develop, she must toe this path which he said developed countries such as Britain, USA among others toed, using scientific innovations by their experts to bring sustainable development to their nations.
To him, the greatness of a nation is not what is deposited in its soil as national endowments but in the brain of her people.
He blamed the failure of Nigeria to have developed 59 years after independence on the poor management of the fabulous proceeds from oil and the neglect of the once vibrant agricultural sector which had great potential at independence.
His words: “Our country at Independence was a potentially great country as the economy was basically agrarian.
The three regions were noted for great exploits in the agricultural sector, we were able to feed our people, exported many cash crops and earned income from our produce.
The military intervention in the governance of the country caused a lot of setback. The regional government was abolished. Our values deteriorated and the zeal for development suffered a great set back”.
According to him, the bulk of the revenue earned from oil sales were spent on importation of rice, sugar, toilet rolls, clothing materials and expensive luxuries instead of promoting home grown industries.
He noted that during the oil boom, the people abandoned the farm, while common palm oil was allowed to be imported to the country and gradually, the country began to record a huge slide in eternal reserve and became a debtor nation.
Akingbule who also decried the level of corruption, tribalism and nepotism in the country added that “economists refer to the co-existence of vast wealth in natural resources and extreme personal poverty in developing countries like Nigeria as the “resource curse”.
He therefore called for sensitisation of the people on scientific innovation and training required for the nation’s sustainable development.
Other speakers at the occasion include Prof. Pius Enikanselu of FUTA; Dr. Afolabi Festus Oluwole, Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo; Ondo State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Wahab Adegbenro; and Host and initiator of the conference who is the Dean, Faculty of Science, Prof. Moses Folarin.
