MEMORANDUM OF THE ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS (ASURI)/CIVIL SOCIETY COALITION PRESENTED AT THE SENATE PUBLIC HEARING ON THE NATIONAL RESEARCH AND INNOVATIONS COUNCIL (NRIC) ESTABLISHMENT BILL, 2022, ON THURSDAY, 17TH FEBRUARY 2022 IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM OF THE SENATE NEW BUILDING, NATIONAL ASSEMBLY COMPLEX, ABUJA
PROTOCOLS
PREAMBLE
The Academic Staff Union of Research Institutions (ASURI) and Civil Societies Coalition heartily appreciate the 9th Senate, the Senate Committee on Science and Technology and Senator Frank Ibezim for their patriotic zeal in recognizing that Research and Development is the key to the development of any nation.
We convincingly and passionately re-assert that Nigeria is unarguably one of, if not the most, naturally endowed nation in the world. The only reason why Nigeria is the world’s poverty capital instead of wealth capital is that successive governments have neglected research which is the only vehicle any nation, whether resource-poor, like Japan or resource-rich like the USA, can develop.
We challenge anyone to contradict the fact that the myriads of socio-economic crisis – poverty, unemployment, insecurity, separatist agitation, mass emigration, etc – are the direct consequences of relegating Research and Development since independence.
Mr. Deng Boqing, then the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, observed that poverty and underdevelopment are the root causes of Nigeria’s security problems. He said: The best solution to Nigeria’s internal security problems still remained the home-grown method of conflict resolution as against the modern military method to achieve peace and stability in the country, the government must address the root causes of insecurity as poverty and underdevelopment. This was reported by Premium Times on 14th November 2013.
The bane of research funding in Nigeria has been the reliance on budgetary allocations. The Hon. Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, is in a vantage position to know. According to him, We need to build the capacity for self-reliance in Nigeria. We are tired of copying others and importing all sorts of things. No country funds science and technology from budgetary allocations.
This has been the position of ASURI, we have remained the leading and indeed, the lone voice in the wilderness, over the years for institutionalized mechanism for research funding coordination, as provided by the National Policy on Science, Technology and Innovation, as represented by NRIC.
President Muhammadu Buhari, as quoted by The Guardian on 17th March 2020, said at the year 2020 edition of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology Exhibition: We will continue to work towards the realization of the National Research and Innovation Fund. I am aware this fund will help promote research activities in our country. If the science and technology of the nation are fully harnessed in an enabling environment, 100 million Nigerians could be taken out of poverty in 10 years.
On 6th January 2016, four years earlier, President Buhari was quoted by Premium Times to have stated during the first meeting of the National Research and Innovation Council (NRIC) in his capacity as the Chairman that, by this action, Nigeria will become a centre of discoveries, inventions and innovation in all fields of science and technology. Before long, we should be able to produce Nobel Laureates in the sciences.
Ten years earlier, specifically on 23rd May 2006, President Olusegun Obasanjo had announced a US$5 billion endowment for the proposed establishment of a National Science Foundation of Nigeria, following the briefing by Jo Ritzen, president of the International Advisory Board for the review of the National Science and Technology Policy. Ritzen, then the president of the University of Maaschicht, was a former Science Minister of the Government of the Netherlands and former Vice President of the World Bank.
Unfortunately, the National Science Foundation has remained a mirage up till now.
By comparison, it is noteworthy while South Africa (population: 59.3 million) spends 1.5 per cent of its GDP on the funding of research, Nigeria (population: 213 million) spends a paltry 0.22 per cent It is projected that if and when NRIC comes on board, the nations outlay on research funding would increase five times to one per cent of its GDP.
This was the projection of the 8th National Assembly which first passed the NRIC Bill, which was co-sponsored by 60 Senators, in 2018. The Bill was returned to it on 30th August 2018 by Mr President, citing some grey areas. It was rectified and returned to the Villa in June 2019, but then it was again denied Presidential assent.
It is pertinent to inform the Senate that the Presidency has shown interest in the NRIC Bill 2022. Following the sustained advocacy by ASURI and the Civil Society Coalition comprising of over 30 non-governmental organisations, the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) in a letter dated 30th November 2021, advised ASURI to re-introduce/re-present the Bill to the 9th National Assembly while monitoring the stages that it passes through and inform the SGF when it is finalized and awaiting Presidential Assent.
The Distinguished Senate President, when you consider the fact that this NRIC was inaugurated during the President Goodluck Jonathan administration and that its first meeting took place on 6th January 2016, under the Chairmanship of President Buhari, and that the Bill only gives legal muscle to the already existing institution, it would surprise anyone that it has been denied Presidential Assent twice. We do know, however, that the NRIC had suffered from wrong advice to Mr President. We are so sure now that its time has come.
ASURI has no objections whatsoever with the funds being domiciled in the Office of the Accountant General with the Council being administered by the Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
However, we must state without mincing words that when the Bill was first returned, ASURI played a major technical role, in consonance with the then-Senate Committee on Science and Technology, in rectifying the Bill. It was at that stage that some contentious portions of the original Bill, especially the proposed funding sources including TETFund, were expunged on our advice while we suggested the inclusion of the representatives of the Committee of Directors of Research Institutes (CODRI), the National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI) and ASURI into the Council.
All of these were accepted but at the end of the day, how ASURI was excluded, we are yet to fathom.
Distinguished Senators, the kind of missing link in research that the anticipated NRIC seeks to fund is that which will have direct bearing and impact on the nation’s socio-economic and technological development and not mere academic exercises.
Professor Suleiman Bogoro, the Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), was reported to have said: Nigerian universities have dwelled too long on teaching rather than research most of the country’s research is only for promotion and not for addressing societal ills. He was addressing the Directors of Research of Nigerian universities in Abuja (Premium Times 26th April 2019).
RECOMMENDATION
ASURI/CS Coalition wishes to make the following major recommendations:
1. That a representative of the Academic Staff Union of the Research Institutions, be included in the list of members of the Council of NRIC.
This inclusion is pertinent because organizations involved in Research and Development in Nigeria are supervised by 14 MDAs. These organizations together with their centres and sub-stations are over 200, spread across all parts of Nigeria. ASURI is the organization that connects all these centres and knows where the shoe pinches.
2. We are mindful of the insistence of the Federal Government to implement the Oransonye Committee recommendations on reducing the number of parastatals. In view of the foregoing, the provisions in Part II of the Bill titled Establishment of the National Research and Innovation Foundation and its Governing Board should be expunged. In its place, we recommend that the Fund be domiciled in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and its disbursement supervised by the Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
3. All other recommendations are as attacched