Only investment in R&D can save us as dumping ground – Prof Haruna

Nigeria will remain a dumping ground for all kinds of foreign made products if the country failed to invest heavily in research and development, the Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure Prof Mohammed Sani Haruna has said.

When a country fails to develop its industrial and manufacturing sector and remains a dumping ground, economic development will remain a mirage, Prof Haruna said in an exclusive interview with Daily Trust in his office in Abuja.

“The only way Europe and the rest of the West can sustain its industrial development is to make us here in Nigeria and the rest of Africa a dumping ground for their goods and products. We can never develop economically without a strong manufacturing”, he said.

He said many MDAs and players in the private sector are paying lip service to local content as NASENI had produced a lot of machine tools and equipment which are not being patronised by even the MDAs.

Bolts and nuts that can be produced here in Nigeria are being imported by manufacturers, the NASENI boss lamented.

“Nigeria’s industrialisation drive would not succeed without a strong iron and steel as well tools and machines industries. They supply necessary equipment for the manufacturing sector,” he said.

Successive governments in the country had paid lip services to the manufacturing sector, according to him.

He said the collapse of the manufacturing sector is responsible for the high unemployment rate in Nigeria and it is only when the country has a strong and viable productive base that the trend could be reversed.

He also said failure to implement statutory funding of NASENI by successive administrations coupled with policy somersault is the cause of Nigeria’s backwardness in industrial development and technological advancement.