The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu has called for a renaissance of Nigerian technological innovations, products and services to be of global standards.
He made the call on Monday in Kano when he visited the Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State.
The working visit was essentially to intimate the governor and people of Kano State on the establishment of a technology innovation centre for global competitiveness.
He stressed the need for intellectual property protection, saying achieving this would encourage more innovators contribute their quota to the development of science, technology and innovation in the country.
The minister said the protection of intellectual property would enhance the growth of medium, small and micro scale enterprises and effectively fight poverty.
He said the country urgently needed the commercialization of research findings, thus turning these research results into goods and services available to Nigerians and for export, adding it would lead to more wealth creation for Nigeria.
On national economic cohesion, Onu said the sensitization exercise would help enhance the fact that all parts of the country were self-sustainable based on the natural raw materials available to them.
He hailed the governor for his efforts in making Kano a bastion of peace and socio-economic development.
Ganduje in his remarks, said the surest way of making Nigeria’s teeming population an asset was by proper implementation of science, technology and innovation policies.
He called for the establishment of business entrepreneurship clinic, as a sure way of equipping youths to improve their manpower skills. He said a minimum of 500 youths in the state had been actively trained to develop their entrepreneurial skills.
He commended Onu and by extension his ministry’s efforts in making Kano State a focal point for the north-west geo-political zone of the Technology Innovation Centre for Global Competitiveness.
