The New Initiative for Credible Leadership, a leading research and development based Civil Society Organization in Nigeria, has stated that the ongoing economic quagmire in Nigeria was as a result of over-reliance on oil.
The organisation said it was high time stakeholders put on their thinking cap for the country to move away from its over dependency on oil and focus on other sectors, particularly agriculture which was the mainstay of the country’s gross national earnings before the advent crude oil.
Addressing newsmen on the activities of Nigeria’s research institutions in Abuja on Saturday, Reverend Steven Onwu, Executive Secretary of the Centre, called on the Nigerian government to look at other sectors like the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) under the leadership of Professor Mrs. Lucy Ogbadu.
NABDA is an organization aimed at promoting, coordinating, and setting research and development priority in biotechnology for Nigeria.
According to Onwu, NABDA within the last two years has continued to work assiduously hard under its mandate to put the nation at par with global realities through its various innovations, scientific breakthroughs in the field of genetics and intellectual acumen to move the country forward.
Onwu noted that Professor Ogbadu is demonstrating to Nigerians through her sterling leadership anchored on accountability, probity and transparency that “our journey to the Promised Land is not a mirage if we put all hands on deck and the country first in all our dealings”.
“The recent economic quagmire that the Nigeria found itself as a result of fall in oil prices across the country and this calls for all stakeholders to put on their thinking cap for the country to move away from oil to other sectors.
“No country in the world is as naturally endowed as Nigeria in terms of 21st century resources that are scattered across the various locations in the country and would require the needed intellectual drivers to achieve that amount of greatness which is commensurate with our resources.
“The organization is patriotically driving the ‘change agenda’ by blazing the trail in this uncommon field and the agency deserves a better funding support to do more”.
The NICreL executive, while calling on the Nigerian Government to support NABDA, noted that the agency needed more encouragement to continue to promote biotechnology activities that positively respond to national aspirations on food security, job/wealth creation, affordable healthcare delivery and sustainable environment.
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