From Ahmad SAKA, Bauchi
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| DR. DAN'AZUMI IBRAHIM Director General NOTAP |
The National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) NOTAP has expressed worry that Nigeria is losing billions of Naira when the country's innovators and inventors take their intellectual assets outside the country instead of it remaining here.
The Director General National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion NOTAP Dr Dan-Azumi Ibrahim gave the indication in Bauchi at a workshop on patentees forum with the theme, "After Patent, What Next."
He said "Yes, I am worried, no patriotic Nigerian will not feel worried. So, this gathering is one of the essence to begin to address the situation we are facing as a nation, we should not be under any illusion that we can continue like this. The foreign exchange we are spending to import other people's technologies is no more available and we have people who are very intelligent, who are geniuses."
Dr Dan'azumi further said "We'll just have to see how we can bring those geniuses together, bring the industries together, bring the private sector together to see how can gradually remove the shackles of dependency on imported technologies"
"The world is moving from resource to knowledge-based driven economy and why countries are advanced is because they've been able to translate their research and development efforts into products and services."
"Nigeria is a major consumer of other people's technologies, so we cannot, as a nation, fold our arms and allow it business as usual. Where are our resources and technologies, our researchers in the universities and polytechnics, the research establishments, they are doing their best, they come out with one innovation or the other but they lying on the shelves. This is means that they have little or no impact on the economic development of the nation, we have to change the narratives."
"How do we change the narratives?If a researcher has been able to come out with an innovation or invention, he has done his bid, it is now the private sector that should take over to move it to the next level. But unfortunately, the private sectors are reluctant, and one of the key gaps we discovered is, yes, you have come out with a research and development of great potential, but you rush and publish it, you have thrown the intellectual asset into the public. You have no monopoly whatsoever of that knowledge," he said.
Director General added that, "we try to sensitize our researchers on the need for them to patent their technologies. Patenting the technologies is to give you an exclusive right or whatever you've discovered, so that nobody will come and use that same language or same information or same knowledge and make money out of it."
"For long, we've been assisting innovators and inventors to protect their intellectual assets. It is now a moment to tell them that after protecting the intellectual asset, what next? Because the next drive is going to be driven by the private sector and that was why we invited the Bank of Industry, CBN, SMEDAN and other agencies that will help the inventors and innovators with necessary financial muzzles or windows to translate what they have learnt into products and services".
"Unless we begin to do that, Nigeria, for a very long time, will remain a consumer nation of other people's technologies, we can't afford to do that," he said.
Dr Dan-Azumi said "Not all inventions are marketable but there are some that are really marketable, but the problem is the researcher has done his bid, he may not have the capacity to move it to the next level, we have quite a number of them."
"One typical example was this pays tag is a payment platform which was developed by a Nigerian and he couldn't get a Nigerian counterpart to move it to the market, but an American Company bought it for $200million. You can see, we have the innovations and inventions that could catapult Nigeria into economic prosperity but what we only need is bringing the relevant stakeholders and synergize efforts, you'll begin to see Nigerians making wonders."
"During our first term in office from 2015-2019, we computed, we saved this nation, N79.63 billion that would have gone out of this country as capital flight. We are now computing between 2020 to the time I will finish my term, hopefully by next year, we will be able to come out with another figure. But hopefully, the figure will be lower because of the sensitization we did where people will begin to realize that there are areas that we don't need to spend so much of our hard-earned currency bringing in technologies. And technologies are emanating from our universities from our research establishments," he said.
Dr Dan-Azumi call on Nigerians that we have to believe in Nigeria, Nigeria is blessed with talented people, Nigerians are good and hard-working and intelligent people. What we must have to do is to harness and become patriotic.
"If there is a product made by Nigerians and it works, Nigerians should be patriotic enough to patronize what is made in Nigeria because that is what will give the innovator of the inventor the will to do more for the system, but if we don't, then we are killing the system by ourselves. We have responsibilities as Nigerians to patronize what is made in Nigeria and that is what will catapult Nigeria into economic prosperity." he said.
Also, Vice Chancellor Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi Professor Muhammadu Abdulazeez represented by the Director Centre for Research Development of the institution Professor Fatima Isawa who commended NOTAP for organising the workshop pledged readiness to support the agency to achieve its mandate.
"I understand NOTAP is committed to encourage Nigerians especially the academia to come up with research findings so that it will be sponsored." The VC added.
Professor Abdulazeez called on the participants to used the opportunity created by NOTAP to explore their research findings for the development of the country.
The Director General Bauchi state Chamber of Commence and Industries Sani Rahir Aminu who said the workshop is apt promised to partner NOTAP to explore the abundant talents for the development of the country.
In an interview, the representative of the Patent Chief Registrar Mrs Rabi Garba restated their commitment to issue certificates to patents to enable them secure their inventions.
The workshop which was organized by NOTAP drew participants from the academia and private sector from the northern states.
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