Science, Innovation Critical To Nigeria’s Development, Says Varsity Don

A Professor of Linguistics at the University of Ibadan (UI) Prof. Francis Egbokhare has said science, technology and innovation are critical to Nigeria’s development if the country must be at par with other developed countries.

Egbokhare, who doubles as President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL), spoke with THE WHISTLER in an exclusive chat in Abuja after receiving N5 million grants on behalf of the academy from the ministry of science and technology.

He said the narrative of national development today requires all Nigerians to put hands and minds together in other to solve the problems of development, adding that complaining will not solve the myriads of problems the nation was facing in terms of development. 

He maintained that some of the developed countries that are technology-driven now use Artificial Intelligence (AI) which he said is moving in the direction of the humanities, adding that, “if development is about human beings and human beings are the consumers of innovation then, of course, the Nigerian Academy of Letters is very critical in the nation’s development

He said: “Innovation is critical to development in our current environment; science and technology is made for man and all these are situated in cultural settings and that is where the letters in itself and the social sciences are very critical in not only disseminating science, technology, and innovation but also dealing with the human issues that are involved.

To this end, the professor urged the government to be more focused, adding that one of the reasons why the country was lagging behind in terms of development was due to lack of coordination and coherence.

According to him, Nigeria ought to be at par with some of the developed countries who are technology-driven in their dealings, stressing that Nigeria can learn the step-by-step procedure from the developed nations rather than going in linear regression.

The president of NAL, however, made a reference on how Nigerians made use of the mobile phones better than the developed nations, which he noted tells a lot of stories.

Egbokhare said: “We need to be able to learn from their steps and then do a quantum leap. In other words, we need to learn from them, we don’t need to pass through what they have passed through, we can then go ahead of them. 

“Repeating the mistakes that some of these nations had made will not help us at all and we need to do a quantum leap. The government has to focus. 

“We can’t afford to have policies that are not coordinated. One of our big problems is the issue of system thinking. We do not think like a system, we do not function as a system.

“There is no coordination, no coherence and once we were able to re-calibrate in terms of the way we approach development I’m sure that this nation is waiting to send a message to the rest of the world.”