President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the change of name of Ministry of Science and Technology to Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Dr Ogbonnaya Onu said the name change is expected to bring about a shift in research and development that is industry and services’ demand-driven.
Onu said;
“This development will help us bring about a shift in Research and Development (R&D) that is industry and services’ demand-driven, resulting in rapid commercialization and ultimately improved global competitiveness ranking of Nigeria.”
It was further learnt that the new name will be gazetted to enable legal and policy frameworks as backup for institutional and organisational arrangements, effective coordination of the National Science and Innovation in the country.
He added;
” When we succeed in achieving this, it will lead us to R &D breakthroughs and inventions that are commercialisable. With the right policy and legal framework to protect intellectual property right, we can effectively promote commercialization in all activity sectors in the value chain for supply of raw materials, goods and services.”
Expressing hope of Nigeria acheiving significant level of poverty alleviation through irreversible indigenous industrialization, adequate platform for higher productivity, improvement in value added components of the economy and job creation, he concluded by saying this would also be a major push to realise the objective of Muhammadu Buhari’s administration of lifting 100million Nigerians out of poverty within 10 years.