The director general of the National Research Institute for Chemical Technology (NARICT) located in Zaria Kaduna state, Prof Jeffrey Barminas has disclosed that in 2022, Nigeria spent over $1.4 billion importing chemical materials, even as he urged the federal government to stop this trend.
Prof Baminas made this known at the special day of NARICT at ongoing Science Technology and Innovation (STI) EXPO 2023 going on in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital with the theme “ Actualising Effective Diversification of the Nigerian Economy Through STI.”
Professor Baminas added that the importation is on the increase due to the high demand for chemicals in different industries of the federation.
“The little foreign exchange that we have we are still spending a whooping one point four billion dollars in the year 2022, that’s huge, and I believe it is still going to increase because world over, over eight thousand chemicals are produced globally, and those eight thousand chemicals find application in different industries. So it will always be on the rise,” he said.
The NARICT boss said Nigerian government must take the advantage of its vast resources in chemical technology to produce different profiles of chemicals that are instead being imported into the country.
He lamented that most of the industries that are called chemical industries in Nigeria are merely serving as packaging industries for other nations. He added that despite Nigeria’s enormous human capital and resources in the chemical sector, the country is lagging far behind in the industry because it has not taken the chemical Industry as the bedrock of its development and has not made the needed investment in the sector.
“There must be a deliberate policy that will help us to look inward, use backward integration to see how we can produce these chemicals and save our foreign exchange”, he said.
He stressed the centrality of the chemical industry to other allied universal, adding that NARICT has been able to produce different fertilizers and agro-chemical products that are very useful to farmers.
He noted that the textile and garment industry including the leather industry depend on the chemical industry and called for effective collaboration between allied industries.
He noted that the NARICT bill when passed into law will give the agency the full mandate to fulfill its responsibilities without any hitches even he called for more finding.
The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of science, technology and Innovation Mrs. Monilola Udoh also stressed that the Chemical technology Industry in Nigeria needs to be strengthened to reduce the level of its importation into the country.
She stated that Nigeria tops the list of countries with the best combination of resources globally but called for more collaboration between the agencies to harness the resources.
