The Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ARCO Group Plc, Mr Alfred Okoigun, has called for stronger investment in science and technology education, saying it was key to Nigeria’s future development.
Okoigun made the call at the 2026 Technology Dinner and Awards Night of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering (NAE) held in Lagos on Wednesday with the theme, ‘From Resource Wealth to Knowledge Wealth: The Science of Nation Building’.
He said every generation is faced with a defining challenge, adding that for Nigeria today, the big question is whether the country can transform its resource wealth into knowledge wealth.
“For our parents’ generation, the challenge was political independence. For many countries that emerged after the Second World War, it was industrialisation. For our generation, the question is more complex, more urgent and perhaps more consequential: can Nigeria successfully transform resource wealth into knowledge wealth?” he asked.
According to him, the future will not belong to countries that merely possess natural resources, but to nations that can create, innovate, solve problems and generate value through knowledge.
Okoigun said Nigeria, at independence, was blessed with oil, gas, mineral resources, a strategic location and a large, energetic population, but argued that natural resources alone cannot guarantee prosperity.
“For decades, our national conversation has focused heavily on what lies beneath our soil. But history has taught us an important lesson: natural resources can create opportunities, but they cannot guarantee prosperity. Resources can generate income, but knowledge creates wealth. Resources can be exhausted, but knowledge compounds and continues to multiply,” he said.
He cited South Korea as an example of what deliberate investment in education and engineering can achieve, noting that the country grew from a poor economy in the 1960s to a global industrial power.
He also pointed to Singapore and China as examples of countries that invested heavily in human capital, innovation and technology to improve the lives of their citizens.
Okoigun said Nigeria must make a similar shift by treating education as economic infrastructure, research as a strategic investment and technology as something to be created and exported, not just consumed.
He added that the responsibility should not rest with government alone, calling on universities, industries and business leaders to work together in building a knowledge-based economy.
President of NAE, Prof. Rahamon Bello, in his welcome address, said the event was put together to honour innovation, excellence, and unwavering commitment to engineering, and to the promotion and recognition of outstanding achievements in Engineering, Innovation, entrepreneurship and Technological advancement in Nigeria.
The Academy, under the leadership of Prof. Bello, presented travel fellowship grant award, which is intended to support and encourage research and international exposure for young locally-trained Nigerian engineering academics wishing to travel for their post-doctoral fellowship in the field of engineering
At the event, the Academy gave grants to five distinguished innovators. Powerbox Energy Systems, a locally manufactured solar solutions and e-waste to energy innovation won the first price with N10 million, Aquavise, an AI-driven Aquafarm with wastewater management system, came second with N6 million cash price, while development of sustainable fibre strand production machine for recycling of plastic waste, a clean and green initiative for environmental conservation, took home N3 million, as other five innovators took home N300,000 each.
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