Researchers to Unveil Strategies to Achieve Tinubu’s 8-Point Agenda
Researchers in the country are set to unveil strategies toward achieving the eight priority agenda of President Bola Tinubu.
This was the outcome of the National Research, Development and Innovation Coordination Summit. The summit was convened and facilitated by Research for Impact, Knowledge Economy, and Sustainable Development (RIKE-SD) and organised by West and Central Africa Research and Education Network (WACREN) with financial support from Foreign Commonwealth Development Office, UK.
Speaking at the closing of the summit in Abuja at the weekend, the Global Impact lead, Research for Impact Knowledge Economy and Sustainable Development ( RIKE SD), Dr. Mustapha Popoola, said the group of researchers plan to provide workable solutions to pronouncements of the president, especially his eight-point agenda.
The blueprint, according to him, would be presented to President Tinubu by 29 May 2024 when he marks a year in office.
Mustapha said the private sector-driven innovation aimed at tackling various challenges bothering the country through Research, Development and Innovation.
Mustpha stressed that the initiative aimed at moving the president’s pronouncements from an instruction to practical implementation.
He said: "Over the decades there has been the same problem, problem of research is not making money, research commercialization problem, everything people have been talking about RDI whereas, Mr. Presidents, in his wisdom has actually directed the need for us to institutionalize research development or innovation across board.”
He noted that as it happens in other climes, when a presidential pronouncement is made, it gives life and it is actually a national direction, and researchers in Nigeria have taken the steps to follow the president’s directive.
He said: "So we take it and in taking it we are making sure that we are taking it to the next level. So the first thing we want to do is to interrogate the Presidential priority areas, eight of them.
"So it's like we are using the directory of the president using the toolkit that we have with us as a people before and as experts to now provide solution to the agenda been set for the country by Mr. President.
"So for the past three days, we have actually been doing that. And we have our working groups who are actually going to be reconstituted as the national think tank for the presidential priority areas.
"We are saying for the first time, we are launching out Research,
Development and Innovation think tank that will be looking at the agenda of Mr. President, and particularly the priority areas.
"So in this room, we have eight groups that have been working on for the past 48 hours on this agenda. And the next thing is for us to allow going to the phase of evidence and synthesis, and come back with solutions to our national problems that are under each of the agenda.
"And to actually get that one down to Mr. President, for implementation, and see those that need to go to the private sector."
He said the idea would be demand driven with emphasis on end users of the research work
Mustapha added: “That is, we are actually looking at the end users of those research which are the communities. So the communities are going to be on display, but as a new approach to make sure that we deliver results.