The Federal
Government has called on Nigerians in the Diaspora to return home and seize the
various economic opportunities to make billions of naira. The Minister of
Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu made the call at an investment forum
organised in New York by his ministry for Nigerians in the U.S. ADVERTISING Onu
explained that various investment opportunities currently existed and were
waiting for them at home, challenging them to take it before they were given to
foreigners.
The former Governor of Abia from 1992 to 1993,
informed the Diaspora Nigerians that various research products with
opportunities to yield billions of naira, were waiting for them at home. “We
are asking you to come and be billionaires.
That is what we are
asking you, not millionaires. Come and make billions. “We will give you
products of research at nothing or little cost to you because it would be nice
for the agency that has done this research to get some little returns. “It
would also be nice for the scientists, engineers who were involved in doing
this research just to get something, that’s all but it would be very small. “So
we give it (research products) to you, knowing that you will keep the money in
Nigeria, you will help employ Nigerians and you will help to grow our Gross
Domestic Product (GDP).
“That is our
interest; that is the reason why we are here,” the minister said. Onu, who was
the National Chairman of the defunct ANPP, explained that the agencies under
the ministry had already developed the research products through various stages
of tests and trials. According to him, we are asking Nigerians in the Diaspora
that think home, come and take the researches that we have done “We have taken
them to a level where you can now immediately convert them into products, make
money out of it; that is the message.”
The minister, who returned to Nigeria from the
U.S. in 1981, said as a policy, researchers would not be involved in the
commercialisation of the research products to enable them concentrate on
innovation rather than money.
He said that one of
the agencies under the ministry was already working on a cure for epilepsy and
was only awaiting the final stages of trials by the National Agency for Food
Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC). “We are working on a cure for
epilepsy; there is a drug that one of our agencies is working on, it is being
tested now. “And we know that epilepsy is a disease that is worldwide and this
agency will not on its own commercialise this dru. “For NAFDAC to give its
approval, there are so many stages of trials and tests that the drug has to
pass through.
“But at the time that it must have satisfied
all these conditions, we don’t want our researchers to go into
commercialisation. “Because if we do that, they would no longer continue with
research; everybody would prefer to go and make money,” he said.
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