A former executive vice chairman of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Prof. Mohammad Sani Haruna, has suggested ways for Nigeria to overcome its developmental challenges.
Speaking while delivering a paper at the maiden convocation of the Federal Polytechnic, Daura in Katsina, Haruna said the country should adopt the Asian Tiger model for industrial development.
Haruna said technical education can help Nigeria overcome its security and economic challenges.
He said it was possible to stop the continued slide of the naira and return to manufacturing with local raw materials.
He said, “Technical education is as important in our national life today next to only food security and national security. In fact, technical education is part of the solution to our security challenges and economic woes.
“The others include qualitative leadership and unity. As a nation, we are now at crossroads to get it right; and consistently so because development in cutting edge technologies better known as frontier technologies has shown tendencies to widen the socio-economic gaps between the advanced and developing nations on one hand; and between the third world and developing countries on the other hand.”
These technologies, he said, include artificial intelligence, robotics, the internet of things (IoT), big data, block chain, additive manufacturing, autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, gene editing, 5G network and the recent innovation of the high-efficient solar cell that can produce a thousand times more power than silicon-based solar cells.
“Despite the opportunities and high potentials of sustainable development brought about by these elements of the fourth industrial revolution, they risk increasing the inequalities by escalating and creating new digital divides between “the technology haves and the have nots,” he added.
This, he said, means Nigeria could remain a consumer nation for generations to come, perhaps until the end of time.
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