Nigeria’s Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu has called for local production of vaccines to limit the supply of vaccines by other countries to Nigeria.
Dr. Onu made the call during a working visit by the Senior Executive Course 43 of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies NIPSS in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
Dr. Onu further who said that Nigeria has the capacity and potential to produce vaccines locally to offer solutions to it challenges also stressed the need for Nigeria and other developing countries to develop home-grown solutions to challenges facing them, such as the production of vaccines to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.
“No matter how wealthy and rich a nation can be, in terms of resources, there is need to make sure that many of the things needed in your country are locally provided”
“The vaccine nationalism that is ravaging the world are all in the developed part of the world. In the high-income nations 1 out of 4 of their citizens have been vaccinated but in the developing countries where most of the African countries belong as many as 1out of 500 have been vaccinated, so the gap is frightening, this is because the poor nations cannot manufacture vaccines and the rich countries cannot give out because it is important that they vaccinate people to make sure that they are secured and safe before giving out to others and you cannot blame them, because this involves life and death,” he added.
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According to the Minister, Nigeria has the capacity to confront all the challenges facing it, adding that all goods and services being imported can be locally produced.
On the issues of security, Dr. Onu said that the deployment of Science, Technology and Innovation, will help the nation overcome many challenges bedevilling her especially in the area of insurgency.
He further said the use of Science technology and innovation will enhance intelligence gathering and facilitate the use of cutting-edge technology to eliminate security challenges in all regions of the country.
Dr. Onu added that the Federal Government is at the implementation stage of the revolutionary Executive Order 5, which seeks to place Nigerian professionals and deployment of Technology as the fulcrum of socio-economic activities, saying that the Federal Government is focused on lifting one hundred million Nigerians out of poverty by the turn of the decade.
“Through the deployment of science technology and innovation a lot of Nigerians will be moved out of poverty and also the Buhari-led administration is committed to creating jobs for over one hundred million Nigerians in the next ten years,” he stressed.
Earlier, the Director of Research, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Professor Dung Pam Sha, said that the Institute will work closely with the Ministry to ensure the deployment of Science Technology and innovation in solving national challenges at all levels.
He also said that the Institute is on a fact-finding mission, on the contributions of the Ministry to national development which will enable the institute make necessary recommendations to the Presidency on how to improve the role of Science technology and innovation to national development.
Nnenna.O
