TECHNOPOLICY BRIEF 8

HOW CAN SCIENCE ANDTECHNOLOGY POLICY AID NIGERIA’SRECONSTRUCTION?

Osita Ogbu

AFRICAN TECHNOLOGY POLICY STUDIES NETWORKPublished by
The African Technology
Policy Studies Network,P.O. Box 10081, 00100 General Post Office,Nairobi, Kenya.
© 2004 African Technology
Policy Studies Network (ATPS)
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interested in generating, promoting and strengthening innovative science andtechnology policies in Africa. With a regional secretariat in Nairobi, the network
operates through national chapters in 21 African countries, with an expansion plan
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Table of Contents
1.0

Introduction

2.0

What is Nigeria’s Shared Vision? Do all the Segments of Power
Structure buy into this Shared Vision?
2How can we prepare a budget that reflects this shared vision?
2Is there need for strategic science and technology policies?
33.0

What is the Second Pillar of Reform Process?

44.0

What is the Role of the Government and Leaders?

65.0

What is the Role of the Legislators?

81

1.0Introduction
It gives me great pleasure today to address eminent and distinguished citizens ofNigeria, representatives of the people, you our law makers who have shown keeninterest in the very dry subject of science and technology (SCIENCE ANDTECHNOLOGY). I say dry because science is often seen as what scientist do andscience and technology is what the Ministry of Science and Technology is set up todo. What has it got to do with legislators, the law makers and other policy makers far
removed from the designated ministry? There are two assumptions. First is thebelief in the centrality of science and technology in Nigeria’s reconstruction and,second, the willingness to always engage in meaningful dialogue. Theseassumptions have solid basis. My task is to set the stage for the discussions bybroadly outlining the key issues and drawing attention to the challenges that lay
ahead as well set the stage for defining roles, individually, institutionally and collectively.
Is there need for fundamental reforms?
There are on-going discussions on how to deepen Nigeria’s economic and systemwide reforms which would unleash the creative energy of the people and make for amore efficient delivery of public goods and an economy that is robust with all theattendant goodies, including ultimately poverty reduction in the country. Economic
reforms are important and there is no question about that. A strong budgetary control,implementation and monitoring is important. The budget, the strongest mostimportant instrument for national economic management, has been poorly
articulated and implemented since the 1980s. Budgetary process and control ofthat process has become an arena for unnecessary vexed contestation forsupremacy between the executive and legislature partly because there is no common
understanding of the aspirations of the Nigerian people. Budgetary implementationand monitoring has been shoddy in most part.

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2.0
What is Nigeria’s Shared Vision? Do all the Segments of the Power Structure buy into thisShared Vision?
How can we prepare a budget that reflects this shared vision?
Very often we see budgetary allocations that have no bearing on reality. How can anagency of government, for instance, be allocated N100 million for its approved
activities for a particular year and it ends up getting N5million at the end of the yearthat is after much lobbying with the associated costs. No serious budgetary process
can allow this level of divergence.
I support a re-examination of the system that delivers Nigeria’s public goods andservices. Albert Einstein once said, that you cannot use the ideas that created theproblems to solve the same problems. Think about it for a minute. If the foundation
is weak, the structures you build on top, no matter how well crafted cannot survivethe slightest storm. Nigeria must address the systemic weaknesses in the public
sector before it can forge ahead. Reform may be a mild word; perhaps what wereally need is to re-engineer the system. For many years, we have side-stepped thepainful decision required to put an effective system in place. Regime after regime
have tinkered on the margin with strong resistance from vested interests andcompounded by political exigency. But one cannot wish the problems away. Thereis a need for an over-arching vision of where the country should be articulated by thePresident who should rally the legislators, the civil service, the governors and everyone
else towards the attainment of this vision. The process of articulating this vision will,in part, determine the outcome. But the President has a duty and responsibility tolead this process with the strong support of legislators. But business as usual will not
do. If it requires a reconfiguration or reconstruction of public institutions or the creationof new ones so be it. For the reform to work there must be various champions whoare vigilant, placed strategically to ensure compliance and continues education.
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How Can Science and Technology Policy Aid Nigeria’s Reconstruction?
This is a necessary sacrifice and if the cross drops on your desk, please accept it aspart of your contribution towards a stronger, more prosperous Nigeria. But like ashared vision, the sacrifice must be shared.
Is there need for strategic science and technology policies?
Reforms, as fundamental as they are, will not be enough to lift Nigeria from its
present economic and social quagmire. The aim is promote and use science andtechnology policies to address Nigeria’s poverty problems. There is abundantevidence that the material well being of the world in the last 200 years was driven byscience and technology. The rich countries are the science and technology haves
and the poorer countries are the science and technology have-nots. The rich countries
are knowledge haves and the poor countries are knowledge have-nots. Rich
countries have industries that are knowledge-intense and the poor countries are still
producing primary commodities. These are not profound statements. We have known
them for many years. They are, in essence, self evident. What is problematic is thathaven known these to be the truth; we have not paid serious attention in Africa andindeed in Nigeria on how to address our knowledge-gap and our science andtechnology- gap.

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3.0
What is the Second Pillar of Reform Process?
The second pillar of the reform process is to restructure the Nigerian economy
towards a knowledge driven economy. According to Professor Jeffrey Sachs, aleading American economist, “part of the failure of the structural adjustment programis that it failed to restructure African countries away from dependence on a narrow
range of primary commodities”. This was as a result of over emphasis on economic
reforms without equal attention to selective science and technology policy andstrategic industrial policies. In fact, selective science and technology policies aswell as strategic industrial policies were deemed “anti-market”. Interestingly enough,as Professor Sachs points out, the “free market United States spends about $85billions
per year of public funds in support of basic science, and applied research anddevelopment.” Yet, the real structural adjustment should have used industrial andscience and technology policies to foster greater manufacturing export, increasing
the knowledge content of African exports and, hence, the value of such exports.
Time and again, countries like Nigeria were told that they should continue to dowhat they do best: produce and export cocoa, palm oil, tea and coffee. This isnonsensical. But more importantly, to improve the productivity of these crops requires
investment in science and technology and prosperity will not only require technicalchange in agriculture, it requires some strong agro-based industries. In Nigeria,
over dependence on oil exports did not help matters. Nigeria’ manufacturing value
added as a percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2000 was 4% comparedto Pakistan’s 15%, South Africa’s 19%, South Korea’s 31% and China’s 35%. At thesame time, Nigeria’s total expenditure on research and development as a percentof GDP in the late 1980s to early 1990s was on the average 0.1%, compared toChina, 0.7%, Pakistan 0.9%, South Africa 1.0%, South Korea, 2.0%. It is no wonderthat these countries in Asia are developing but Nigeria is not. There is clearly strong
evidence that a country that invests in Research and Development (R&D) andeducation of its population will improve the knowledge content of its products provided
it also invests in selective science and technology and industrial policies that4

How Can Science and Technology Policy Aid Nigeria’s Reconstruction?
constitute part of the enabling environment. Priority must be accorded to quality
training of the work force, with greater attention paid to strengthening and improving
the relevance of the engineering and science curriculum. Economic reform should
not be allowed to “reform out” the engine of growth and prosperity; science andtechnology.
It must be recognized though that science and technology go beyond the realm ofR&D. One, however, does not have to move from R&D to technology. To industrialize,
to improve the knowledge content of our exports and close the knowledge-gap, wemust be ready to borrow ideas and shop for technologies that already exist. But
transfer of knowledge and technology cannot occur in a non-technical environment.
One critical element in closing the knowledge-gap, in ensuring technology transferis building the requisite human capital. There must be trained people to absorb anduse this knowledge. Again, once the vision is defined, it is critical to build essential
skills around a system of innovation that mobilizes resources towards the attainmentof the stated goal.

54.0
What is the Role of the Government andLeaders?
Whether it is in using science to create technology that will address Nigeria’s many
problems or in shopping for, and using existing technologies, the role of thegovernment is central. The government cannot afford to be passive; it must
aggressively and purposefully seek to acquire this knowledge or technology andmonitor its adoption and use. Leadership is so important that it often defines thetechnology trajectory of most countries. The champion could be the President or
the President of the Senate or the Speaker of House of Representative or theChairman of the House Committee on science and technology. Can you imagine
what would happen to the science and technology of palm wine production if thePresident, through an act of crisis construction, announces that Nigeria would be
the leading exporter of world-class palm wine by 2005. And that he and all his guests
will from that date be served this palm wine at all official dinner, here and abroad.
The President need not know the details of what is involved to achieve this goal.
Clearly, the President does not simply announce this and rests, but demonstrates
leadership by mobilizing resources around this project with strong personal interest
and commitment through close supervision and monitoring. It is almost guaranteedthat the Nigerian scientific community will rise to the occasion. When John F. Kennedy
announced that America would land someone on the moon, it was an act of crisis
construction. He had no idea what he was talking about but he had committed thenation and had to deliver. The American scientific community rallied to his statedgoal and with his personal commitment, the feat was achieved. The leadership that
the Prof Turner Isoun, the Nigerian Minister of Science and Technology isdemonstrating through the launch of Nigeria’s first satellite is not only commendable,
it illustrates how personal commitment and a clear vision are vital for technologicalacquisition. This was not your usual “shop and deploy” strategy. Rather, a clear
program of transfer of technology involving the training of at least 15 young Nigerianengineers from the construction of the satellite to deployment was instituted andagreed upon. Many of Nigeria’s other technical and managerial agreements in6

How Can Science and Technology Policy Aid Nigeria’s Reconstruction?
many fields from communication, automotive manufacturing to oil exploration andmining beg this question. Why are there no benchmarks, milestones, and othermeasures for ensuring that Nigeria benefits from much more than taxes but fromtechnical skills acquisition and diffusion of knowledge to the wider economy fromjoint ventures and other foreign direct investment arrangements? One wonderswhether it is ignorance, corruption or simple negligence on the part of the leaders.

74.0
What is the Role of the Legislators?
The role of the legislators is not that different from those expected from the executive
arm of the government. We expect the science and technology committees of thetwo chambers of the house to work together with their counterparts in industry andagriculture. With their counter parts in the industry committee, they should maintainoversight on technical agreements entered into by governments to ensure that they
have monitorable science and technology benchmarks. They should use their powerof summon to question key industry leaders on progress towards transfer of knowledge
and skills especially in fields currently dominated by foreign investment and expertise.
They should make creative proposals to the industry on how the industry and thecountry can have a win-win situation through a deliberate intensification of industryeconomy wide linkages and appropriate beneficial legislation that are of keen interest
to the industry. The legislative oversight must also extend to the government agencies,
which must be accountable for the public resources they receive with clear
benchmarks of deliverables.
In a declining revenue scenario such that Nigeria is facing, financing of science andtechnology will require an innovative mechanism that requires a mix of private,public and external resources. The legislators should have input in this. The role of
the government in finding the appropriate financing mix is critical and will require
strong cooperation between the legislative and the executive arm of the government.
Treating science and technology as residuals in the budgetary process will not do.
Once the vision has been articulated, resources including money, people, institutions,processes must be mobilized toward the attainment of this vision. Let us realize thatNigeria is poor not because of absence of capital but because of lack of organizedknowledge, lack of appropriate and, I might add, homegrown, implementable policies
and lack of will to implement and monitor these policies. It would be futile to use thesame ideas and systems that created the problems to attempt to solve the sameproblems.
8ATPS Technopolicy Briefs Series
Who Benefits from the New International Intellectual Property Rights Regime? And
What Should Africa Do? by Ha-Joon Chang(ATPS Technopolicy Brief 1)
How Can We Constitutionalize Innovation, Technology and Intellectual Property inKenya ? by Bernard Sihanya(ATPS Technopolicy Brief 2)What Can Biotechnology Do For Africa? How Can The Associated Risks And
Uncertainties Be Managed? by Norman Clark(ATPS Technopolicy Brief 3)
Who Needs Technology Policy? by Ha-Joon Chang(ATPS Technopolicy Brief 4)
Keeping Hunger at Bay: Genetic Engineering and Food Security in sub-SaharanAfrica by John Mugabe(ATPS Technopolicy Brief 5)

The author is the Executive Director of African Technology Policy Studies Network(ATPS). This policy brief is based on a speech delivered at the Science andTechnology Policy Seminar and Training in Abuja, Nigeria on September 29, 2003.
Views expressed in this brief are personal.

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