FG Offers Foreign Companies Incentives to Bridge Technology Gap

The Minister of Science and Technology, Mr. Ogbonnaya Onu, has said the federal government was willing to offer foreign companies generous incentives through its technology transfer development initiative so as to bridge the technology gap that existed between it and developing nations.

Onu, while welcoming the Irish Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Sean Hoy, to his office in Abuja over the week end, said Irish technology firms should take advantage of the generous incentive to set up plants in Nigeria.

He said: “We have a programme developed by the science and technology ministry on technology transfer development initiative whereby we will give incentives to any company or firm that comes into the country and allows technology to be transferred to Nigerians.

“The ministry is working very hard to close technology gaps in the country and that is why Irish companies can come in.”

He acknowledged that the relationship between Nigeria and Ireland had been very cordial and could be further strengthened. Onu said in the past, many missionaries from Ireland established schools in Nigeria, which many Nigerians benefitted from.

He added: “It is good that we should talk about the emphasis Ireland places on education with good technology which helped it fight and defeat poverty. This is exactly what we want to do here.

“The administration of President Muhammad Buhari is poised at creating jobs and growing the economy, in addition to securing the nation and making sure that the rule of law is observed.”

“The ministry is working with other ministries like industry, trade and investments and finance on this to make sure that we give tangible incentives provided they are willing to share their technology with us to encourage companies to come in set up and transfer technology to Nigerians.”

In a remark, Hoy, said Ireland is the second largest exporter of computer and Information Technology (IT) services in the world. “We are able to say that we are the only English speaking country in Europe with largest concentration of ICT companies in that part of the world”, he said.

According to him, Google, Yahoo and several domain name users have their Europe Head offices in Ireland. “What attracted all these companies to our countries is the highly skilled workforce that is present in our country. We have research and innovation centres in all our Universities.” the Ambassador added.

“It will be interesting for you to know that the first text message in the world was sent between two phones in the Ireland. And I could not imagine a life in Nigeria if you could not send a text.

“Let me also inform you, minister and the delegation that, that in December we had a very large delegation of about 41 companies in Ireland visiting Nigeria; just 10 days after your inauguration.

A lot of software that are used to protect credit and debit card owners from fraudsters were manufactured by Irish companies.

I think there is huge lot of opportunities for collaboration for the ministry and Ireland.”

On volume of trade between the two countries, he said: “The trade figure between Nigeria and Ireland last year was about 270 million Euros, but we are hoping that it is going to increase by the end of this year. In the trade mission we had in December over 50m Euro contract was signed in that mission.”

The envoy said Ireland is interested in collaborating with the science ministry to close Nigeria’s technology gap, adding: “Relationship between the ministry and Ireland is that we have to look for the opportunity to use tech for the development of Nigeria.

“We have developed a very good online education and we have teachers with good online certificates who can train people here in Nigeria.”