Govt needs to ban foreign goods Nigerians can produce – Mammora

The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Olorunnimbe Mamora, yesterday called for a ban on all foreign goods Nigeria has the capacity to produce in order to protect local productions and inventions.

He made the call while featuring at the ministerial briefing organised by the Presidential Communication Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

He said most of the inventions by agencies under his ministry were lying fallow on shelves because of drought of investors and investments.

He said the ministry had the challenge of taking research outputs to the market, and that it was only when that was done that it would be seen as doing something.

He said the ministry was thinking of a legislation to compel protection of the inventions before pushing them to the market.

“We need to do more in terms of having that handshake between the research institutions and the market through investors and those who are interested – people that move around with their capital and would want to invest. So, it’s a challenge that we know we are still facing which we will need to do more.

“We have so many outputs that are still gathering dust in shelves in various agencies. So, what we’re doing is to continue to engage, to continue to have fora for these engagements where we can bring all stakeholders together.”

Mamora stressed the need for Nigerians to be aware of the local inventions and desire them, and for investors to be willing to embrace the products and get them introduced to the consumers’ market.

“One of the challenges again is that we’ve developed taste that is not local. Rather, taste that is alien. We have this tendency to want to get something from abroad.

“Again, I think government will need to really come hard in terms of a total ban, as it were, of things that we have capacity to do locally. That’s why nationalism comes in,” he said.