The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has called on Nigerians to support and use locally made products and goods.
Reiterating the country’s capacity to manufacture quality items, the agency appealed to citizens to reduce their reliance on imported goods.
Engineer Oladimeji Alasoluyi, a Deputy Director (Engineering) at NASENI, made the call in Ado Ekiti during the agency’s strategic focus group session themed “Made In Nigeria for Everyone.”
Alasoluyi explained that NASENI’s mandate includes promoting local technology and that the federal government is actively working to transition Nigeria from a consuming to a producing nation.
He said, “It is to make people aware of the fact that Nigerians have the capacity to make made in Nigeria goods. Part of our campaign is local technology. No nation can strive without technology. We are out to make people aware that there is the need for us to patronize made in Nigeria goods.
“Nigerians have the capacity, the expertise and the resources, so why are we not patronizing made in Nigeria products? If Nigeria must take its rightful place in global technology, it begins with you and I.
“The present administration under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu is ensuring that Nigerians don’t depend much on imported goods. We know Nigeria as a consuming nation but that mindset needs to be changed. We want to be a producing or manufacturing nation and be exporting our goods. And how can we do that? Needs have been put in place by NASENI in the areas of collaboration, creation and commercialization. There is a need to rob minds with the stakeholders as the government cannot do it alone.
“There have been fora where entrepreneurs are invited for exhibition to know things being produced. We are open for collaboration with the SMEs. We train them and build their capacity in all our twelve centres which spread across Nigeria.
“Primarily, we are training the SMEs and the processes, the products are seeded out to them so that they can mass produce in an environment that is thriving.”
He said the agency was established basically to promote and develop science, technology and engineering infrastructure in the country as well as to address various challenges and needs in Nigeria’s scientific and technological development.
“The mandate of NASENI centres on research, development, manufacturing and capacity building, job creation among others. To fulfil these mandates, we have 12 centres of institutes strategically located across the country with different mandates in the areas of electronics, engineering materials and designs, manufacturing, power and scientific equipment and solid minerals and more institutes are still coming up.
“The agency is made to be of great relevance to the SMEs, the product developed is to assist the SMEs to be empowered and to contribute to the nation’s technological and economic development.”
During the panel session, Prof. Sunday Adedini of Federal University, Oye Ekiti, Senior Special Assistant to the Ekiti Governor, Moses Ademiloye, and an entrepreneur, Mrs Modupe Akosile, among others, spoke about factors responsible for the non-acceptance of locally made goods by Nigerians and how government and private bodies could be of assistance to the SMEs.
In his contribution, Professor Adedini said, “leadership must coordinate the processes well, training of the SMEs must be prioritise, agencies synergy, government protection of local industries and consumers.”
For Ademiloye, Nigerians should get quality for what they paid for and get value for their money.
“Also, there should be availability of the products. It is discovered that the quantity of goods produced in Nigeria, most of the time don’t meet up with the volume of what Nigerians want. Most Nigerians are not aware of made in Nigeria goods and products compare to the foreign ones,” he said.
What you should know
NASENI is advocating for increased support of made-in-Nigeria goods, emphasizing local innovation and SME empowerment to shift Nigeria from a consuming to a producing nation.
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