Nigerian born Inventors, their Inventions, Challenges and Opportunities III

Nigerian born Inventors, their Inventions, Challenges and Opportunities III

Last year, precisely, Friday of 29th July and 5th August, 2016, I wrote 2-series article with above caption where I mentioned the innovations made by nine prominent Nigerians. The nine mentioned were tip of the iceberg as the country is blessed with so many innovators and inventors. Inventions can seen at the corner of fabricators, mechanics workshops, research archives of Nigerian universities and other tertiary Institutions of learning. The list of Nigerian inventors can never be exhaustive, so also their challenges as well as the opportunities provided by their works. The opening paragraph of the article started with a quotation;    "Necessity is the mother of invention", a popular adage describing the resultant effect of a difficult situation. Nigerian situation has been so difficult for quite some years now and the positive outcomes of this rather unpalatable condition are the creativity, ingenuity and invention brought out by Nigerians to survive the harsh condition. Ordinarily, Nigerians are naturally gifted with above average level of ingenuity, hard work and perseverance, when added to the prevailing difficult situation the result is multitude of inventors. Uncountable number of inventors scattered in all the nick and crannies of our 36 states and FCT is making me to write more on the subject. It is my hope that one or more industrialists will leverage on the opportunities provided by these inventions, make investment and raise the nation to a higher level of technological breakthrough. The government must create a conducive environment for the investment to happen be sustained,  

Ability to create, innovate and invent cuts across all boundaries such as gender, race, religion and age. It is a natural phenomena, whose development is facilitated by many factors such as necessity, intellectual thinking and concern for development. Nigeria is blessed with these factors and thus, has highest number of innovators in Africa as reported by many media over the years. Adding the list of the innovators to the previous ones are the names of women and men, youth and elderly, highly educated and semi-educated across the nation.

The first in the list is    Nkem Uwaje, a founder of  FutureSoft  Software Resources Limited (Futuresoft), an Information Technology (IT) outfit whose establishment in 2008 was driven by the desire to change Nigeria’s technology space. FutureSoft offers website development, e-commerce and web-portal development, web hosting, corporate branding, online marketing, social media management, as well as e-learning solutions for corporate and educational institution. Similarly, Futuresoft provides IT Security solutions and consultancy services for the public and private sector. The mission of Futuresoft is to provide Information Technology solutions for the African market while ensuring global standards, quality, dedication and integrity. Nkem is refuted to be a guru of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Africa. She received many awards among the prestigious ones were the Jim Ovia Prize for Software Excellence in Africa and the Etisalat Prize for Innovation for her efforts in improving access to technology in Nigeria and Africa-at large. Others innovation awards won by Nkem were 2013 e-Business Life Amazon of Youth Technology Empowerment Award and  2013 AR-CSR Sustainable Solutions Showcase for the i-Connect Project. Futuresoft is expanding tentacles beyond the boundaries of Nigerian market to other markets in Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya. No doubt, Nkem is moving on top gear, energized by her genuine concern for the low level of IT in Africa and her gender is not an obstacle to her progress. “when it comes to ICT, I don’t do the gender thing to be honest, there are just not enough Africans in the Information technology pipeline. The IT literacy rates here are so low across board that gender does not make much difference. We need better qualified IT people regardless of gender.”  She told Mary Olushoga, Founder, AWP Network during an interview reported  in Mary's blog.

 Still on the IT, another name worth mentioning is Adebunmi Adeniran. She invented NAILANGS, a computer keyboard that permits typing prominent Nigerian languages. The creation of characters for typing Nigerian languages with their complex dialect is certainly a noble effort worth commendation and celebration. So far, NAILANGS  has a multilingual keyboard supports and enables writing in at least twelve Nigerian languages. This innovation promotes Nigerian language and ensures that the languages become relevant and do not become extinct as well as making them easy to learn. The Adeniran innovation was reported by The Guardian of 2nd February, 2016 and was quoted her saying "with NAILANGS keyboard, there is no need to switch from one computer to another because once it is downloaded, one is able to type in English and it can be made a bilingual due to the nature of Nigerians who mostly speak more than a language. With the key, one is able to type the three official languages, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba and other six populous languages which are Effic, Idoma, Hausa/Fulani, Tiv, among others.” Justifying her effort she said "one of the reasons for her choice of keys is the number of people in a particular ethnic and their passion to speak their dialect, such language is Urhobo people, they are very passionate about writing their language, so I have incorporated their keys, even though they might not be part of the so called most populous languages, because they love to do something with their language.”

The next innovator is Bilikiss Adebiyi. While many consider IT as the hotbed for innovators, Billikiss  left a five-year-long job as a Software Programmer at IBM in the United States to return home to Nigeria and execute an idea that came to her when she was schooling at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She created a recycling outfit called WeCyclers. WeCyclers collects wastes from low-income communities and rewards the participants with points that can later be exchanged for prizes. Lagos was her natural choice for this kind of innovation for obvious reasons; population, filths and water. The generated waste materials – which are also collected with help from the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) – are then sold to recycling companies, making WeCyclers both a social and economic enterprise. Bilikiss innovation is becoming a movement, changing the way Nigerians and Africans view waste. She was reported saying, “Waste management is one of the main problems for poor populations in Nigeria. We want to create a system that would change how people see waste from a problem to a solution.” She is already raising general awareness on the importance of recycling for environmental sustainability and social welfare gained from reduction in pollution and diseases like malaria. The innovation offers convenient household recycling service using a fleet of low-cost cargo bikes. We are powering social change using the environment by allowing people in low-income communities to capture value from their waste.

The next innovator is Yahaya Ahmed, a co founder of Development Association for Renewable Energy (DARE)- Architecture/Eco friendly homes, Nigeria. Eco-friendliness takes an amazing architectural form in plastic bottle houses, constructed by the (DARE) in Nigeria. DARE constructed these homes from thousands of recycled plastic bottles which are filled with sand, cement, and mud. These components form a highly formidable wall which is 20 times stronger than brick walls, fireproof, bulletproof, and earthquake resistant. DARE is a Kaduna-based non-governmental organisation, which seeks to promote the understanding and use of renewable energy resources as well as promote clean indoor air through energy autonomous plastic bottle houses and other environmental projects. The houses are fitted with energy saving stoves with little or no emissions which mitigate desertification and climate change, urine filtration fertilization systems and purification tanks. Yahaya Ahmed’s environmental projects seek to aid Nigeria’s issues with deforestation and pollution, in addition to other forms of environmental degradation. The energy efficient kitchen stoves were recently made available for purchase in Kaduna and plans are in the works for nationwide availability. DARE currently trains young people in Kaduna to assemble the stoves in order for them to become future entrepreneurs. Additionally, the organisation is training local masons in the bottle building technique with the help of Andres Froesse, the founder of Eco-Tec Soluciones Ambientales. (To be continued next week) Click to download the newspaper version

Readers Comments

Readers Comments

My esteemed readers, I am presenting some of your comments as stated last week. Next week, I will continue with a new topic by God's grace. Happy reading

Solar System: Man's Discoveries and Activities on Mars

Dear Prof M. K. Othman

In reference to the article on Solar System: Man's Discoveries and Activities on Mars published by lovely newspaper; LEADERSHIP FRIDAY of , 4th November 2016. It was indeed a very interesting scientific write up on solar system. Permit me to make contribution on the subject for the purpose of educating the general public. The human activities and efforts made us to discover our solar system, which consists of  the sun; the nine officially identified planets, at least three “dwarf planets”, many satellites of the planet, a large number of small bodies (the comet and asteroids), and the interplanetary medium.  The nine  planets as we all know are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. The Sun is the richest source of electromagnetic energy (mostly in the form of heat and light) in the solar system. The Sun's nearest known stellar neighbor is a red dwarf star called Proximal Centauri, at a distance of 4.3 light years away. The inner solar system contains the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars: the main asteroid belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The planets of the outer solar system are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. (Pluto is classified as dwarf planet).  The sun contains around 98% of all the material in the solar system. The larger an object is, the more gravity it has. This is because the sun is so large, its powerful gravity attracts all the other objects in the solar system towards it.

The planets, most of the satellites of the planets and the asteroids revolve around the Sun in the same direction, in nearly circular orbits. When looking down from above the Sun's North Pole, the planets orbit in a counter-clockwise direction.

The planets orbit the Sun in or near the same plane, called the ecliptic. The whole solar system, together with the local stars visible on a clear night, orbits the center of our home galaxy, a spiral disk of 200 billion stars we call the Milky Way. The Milky Way has two small galaxies orbiting it nearby, which are visible from the southern hemisphere. They are called the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud. The nearest large galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy.

Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and the second smallest planet in the solar system, after mercury. Named after Roman god of war, it is often referred to as  the “Red Planet” because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, having surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the moon and the valleys, deserts and polar ice caps of the Earth, mars has two moons namely: phobos and Deimos, which are small and irregularly shaped. These may be captured asteroids, similar to 5261 Eureka, a mars Trojan.

After recording successes on the moon mission, the next challenge taken by the astronomers is the "mission to mars". Mars is the next simple destination after the moon mission for scientific discovery and robotic and human exploration as we expand our presence into the solar system. Mars formation and evolution are comparable to that of earth, therefore scientific study of Mars can help us learn more about the history and future our own planet; earth. Already some of the observations on Mars show conditions suitable for life in its past. Future exploration might uncover evidences of the fundamental mysteries human existence and galaxies.

As mentioned, mars is the fourth planet from the sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, after Mercury. It is sometimes called the "Red Planet" because of the iron oxide prevalent on its surface, which gives it a reddish appearance. Mars as one of the terrestrial planets has a thin atmosphere, with surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps of Earth. The rotational period and seasonal cycles of Mars are likewise similar to those of Earth, as is the tilt that produces the seasons. Mars is the site of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and second-highest Known Mountain in the Solar System. The smooth Bore appearing like basin in the northern hemisphere covers 40% of the planet and may be a giant impact feature. Mars has two moons orbiting around it, Phobos and Deimos, they are small and of irregularly shaped. These could be captured as asteroids, similar to 5261 Eureka, a Mars Trojan. Physically, Mars is approximately half the diameter of Earth and its surface area is only slightly less than the total areas of Earth’s dry land. Mars is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earth's volume and 11% of Earth's mass, resulting in about 38% of Earth's surface gravity. The red-orange appearance of the Martian surface is caused by iron (III) oxide, or rust. Today, scientists are arduously working round the clock studying mars while billions of Dollars are globally being expended on such studies. This has made the robotic explorers to closely study Mars for more than 40 years, even as early as the 1950s, aerospace engineer Wernhervon Braun, had published his vision of a mission to Mars in his book The Mars Project. The book became an inspirational material for the people interested in understanding our solar system. NASA is leading in this expensive venture, its path for the human exploration of Mars begins in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station. Astronauts on the orbiting laboratory are

helping us prove many of the technologies and communications systems needed for human missions to deep space, including Mars.

Scientists should not relent in their efforts to discover all the mysteries surrounding this red Planet and their efforts may soon yield dividends. However, as for the human mission to Mars, I think we need to tread very softly. As adventurous as it looks, it will be a suicide mission

Aliyu Abubakar Kele, Aliero

Dear M. K. Othman

let me use this opportunity to thank congratulate you and Leadership Friday for your interesting column "Breakthrough with MK Othman". Please sir, keep up the good work and more power to your elbow. Generally, I find your articles very interesting and refreshing especially on  Solar System: Man's Discoveries and Activities on Mars. This topic aroused my interest on the mission of man to colonise and inhibit the planet Mars. How possible? After careful study of your article and accessing information on Mars, popularly called red planet, I identified some areas that made me more inquisitive to find out how man plans to achieve his dream of inhabiting Mars or will I say to become multi-planet specie in the next 40 to 100 years. Is that not a tall dream that may never happen? Although, the man championing this mission Mr. Elon Musk is doing a great job to see that this dream of human being landing on Mars comes to fulfilment.‎ My question needing urgent answer is how does man intend to make ‎Mars habitable for himself in terms of food, water, electricity and clean air? This question is arising as stated in your article it says and I quote “the condition of Mars is certainly a far cry from that of earth. The average temperature on the plant is negative 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and it doesn't have earth's dense atmosphere, which is what result in the huge temperature fluctuation and massive dust storms". Similarly, Mars also lack a magnetic field, which means there is nothing to shield inhabitants from the intense radiation that is blasted out by the sun. 

Zayyanu Musa

Adieu Baba Abdulkarim "Kaida", the Epitome of Due Process

As a little boy on errand, to buy Soap, Omo, or Vedan for my dear mother or father, whenever I headed to '' KA'IDA SHOP'' - there I was better served, with a gift of biscuit or sweet, and above all with smile and simplicity. Indeed, I sympathize with our errand children of today who missed the generosity of ''Ka'ida.'' May the reward of the example you showed reflect in the life of the hereafter. God's guidance and protection is my prayer to the family you left behind, amen. GOODBYE BABA "KAIDA". Please, Prof. accept my deep hearted condolence.

Nura Shehu Bindawa

May Allah forgive his sin, grant him Aljannah Firdous and give you the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss

Umar Aliyu

Click for the Newspaper version

Readers' Comments

Readers' Comments

Un petit pause - A French way of saying "it is a time to pause", time to allow reactions, feedbacks and contributions from esteemed readers of this Column. This week and next week, you will be served with the opinions of some of my readers. The comments are many and diverse on the  different subjects discussed in this Column and thus, I have to edit them for reason of space and clarity. Comments on biotechnology are as controversial as expected because of the two opposing views on GMOs, however, Dr. Mohammed Makeri, a Malaysian trained food scientist sent a brilliant and interesting view that I found very educative and informative. Sadly, Dr. Makeri was involved in a road accident on the Eve of the New year along Maiduguri - Damaturu Road where  he sustained injuries. Please, join me to pray for his quick and steady recovery. Lastly, let me wish you and indeed all Nigerians a year of prosperity, God's guidance, grace and protection, amen. Happy reading.

Food Security in Nigeria: Is Biotechnology the Panacea?

Dear Prof. M. K. Othman

Thank you Professor for the well-articulated write-up. While we are at it I will like to pose some questions based upon the adoption of biotechnology as a means for producing more for less, to meet up with our populations' growth.
Sir, there is an incessant increase of cases of cancer and obesity in the western world; how does that relate to their adoption of GM foods?
Biotechnology is a delicate aspect that mistakes cannot be tolerated in the course of gene modifications and improvements. Seeming to the fact that our indigenous research institutes and research gadgets are not accorded the much needed attention and support, are we ready for a biotechnological breakthrough in food production?
Sir how possible is it for us to achieve this fate with the Senate's inability to pass the biotechnology bill into law, and centres like National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA) and SHESTCO are not wearing a semblance of serious research into the aforementioned field?

Abdullahi Aliyu

Dear Prof. Othman

Though advancement in the field of biotechnology is a welcome one, the move to go beyond classical/conventional biotechnology of plants and animal breeding or improvement should be made with caution. The threats posed by bulging world population are real, no doubt about that except maybe for the few who underestimate the underlying danger. But is biotechnology the tool to counter the threat? Understandably, in modern times the term Agricultural/food biotechnological products refers to food of plants or animal origin developed via genetic engineering, or mildly, modern biotechnology. In contrast to genetic modification, in classical or conventional breeding, plants or animals with desirable traits are made to mate and the resulting progeny will (most likely) bear traits that surpass that of either of the two parents alone, if I understand quite well. In the plant kingdom, for example, we have grafting, from which many high yielding tree crops evolved, with examples like mangoro mai aure. In the animal kingdom, chicken specifically, we have the Rhode Island Red, New Jersey, New Hampshire red, Plymouth Red, etc. that yields meat and egg in just 5-8 weeks. Though, not without associated demerits in either case. For example, it is well acknowledged our local poultry breeds are more robust, sturdy, resistant to local threats and the meat flavourful than, for example, ‘New-jersey’ or any of the imported breeds. The latter though have higher feed conversion efficiency and more carcass weight than the former that takes 3-4 months before attaining slaughter. The rates of conversion of grains to meat, milk, and eggs from food animals have improved significantly and broiler growth rates nearly doubled, eggs dropped per layer has multiplied several folds since the early 1960s and ‘70s. Additionally, bird health and product quality and safety have improved through applications of breeding, feeding, disease control, housing, and processing technologies.

But however, critics of modern biotechnology products, especially GMO or transgenic materials, argued that we produce sufficient foods but that much is not utilized as appropriate to benefit the geometrically growing human population: postharvest losses-poor storage, gluts, bad transportation, warehousing, etc. Another challenge is the large, growing food security gap in certain places around the world. As much as half of the food grown and harvested in underdeveloped and developing countries never gets consumed, partly because proper handling, processing, packaging, and distribution methods are lacking. Indicating that the issue is not about quantity but appropriate and judicious utilization of food resources to meet bodily requirements.

Thanks to Food Science though in making foods round the globe, from areas of surplus to areas of lack. But still, starvation and nutritional deficiencies in vitamins, minerals, protein, and calories remain prevalent in all regions of the world, including the United States, UK, Germany where another face of food insecurity is trending. Whereas our own of lack of foods could best be described as type of ‘Quantity Food Insecurity’, the version suffered by the advanced nations may be termed ‘Quality Food Insecurity.’ For example, much or almost all of corn grown in the US is fed to animal, in the developing nations, it is the opposite as we all know. Thus from the World Food Summit(1996) definition of Food Security; “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”, it seems no one nation is food secure though at a different levels and measure.

On the other hand, proponents of Genetically Modified Food Commodities, GMO, argued that the quality of our food supply has been “damaged” by modern plant breeding and agricultural practices such as genetic manipulation of plants and animal traits. They averred that the food industry has incorrectly applied the knowledge of food science and technology to develop processed foods that result in poor dietary habits. They premised that knowledge of chemistry and the physical properties of food constituents had allowed the food industry to make processed ‘fatty’, ‘sugary’, energy dense foods (also termed ‘junk’ foods) that result in overeating, overweight, ‘over-sedentary’ ‘over-inactivity’, ‘over-excess energy’, etc, making the general population to abandon whole foods. Thus they attributed recent bad eating habits and the emergence of ‘modern disease’ conditions (such as obesity, CHD, etc) to ingestion of ‘over processed’ foods whereby much accumulate in the body. But it should remembered that foods produced through biotechnological or Organic means must also be processed to some extent before consumption.

Whichever definition of Food Security we adopt, bigger food companies must always survive and continue to make profit no matter who suffers. Recently, we have the ‘functional’, ‘nutraceutical’ or ‘designer food. Old wine in a new bottle? Advancement in technology has made us remove the micronutrients from our foods before consuming, and then later we pay money for the same nutrients added back, tagged ‘functional, nutraceutical or designer food. The vitamins, minerals and fibre (dusa) thus removed must be returned (in-cash or in-kind) because they were added by nature. In most instances the nutrients added were of synthetic origin and you aren’t so sure of what goes down your intestine. You eat whole cereal foods you save your money and save your throat. In fact, these so called designer foods are trending in the affluent countries, where they too manifests consequentially in form of bloated healthcare costs and associated social discomforts. We now have the ball rolling: Transgenic foods, Organic Foods, Junk Foods, Functional/designer Foods or Whole Foods? This is just my personal opinion, and like anybody, others could view the subject differently!!

Dr Mohammed Usman Makeri, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria

Ahmadu Bello University Zaria: Innovation - Key to Economic Growth and Development II

Ahmadu Bello University Zaria: Innovation - Key to Economic Growth and Development II

In Nigeria, we have millions of talented youth who hardly understand the power of their natural gifts, thus, unable to develop their talents into meaningful ventures for themselves and the society. To change the trend, our first task is to embark on a strategic initiative that will act as an incubator and preparatory phase for innovation. This needs a collaborative effort between our tertiary institutions, the government and respective local communities. We should have 'Talent Search Teams' nationwide, whose mandate would be to search and identify talented youth from around the country, who would then be trained towards developing their specific talents, and then helped to proceed into the right structured tertiary programs to become effective professionals in their relevant fields. The place for the training can be termed 'Super innovation Incubation Centres" where the youth can go to be inspired, and to be free to imagine and focus their mental energies, uninhibited by the negative influences that may be prevalent in the surrounding society. Such centres should be irresistibly beautiful central hot spot, equipped with internet and digital libraries to provide a constructive avenue where these youths can engage themselves in productive discussions, experiments and studies.

The next is to create a link between industrial innovation and creativity. This is where we have a huge disconnect in Nigeria. On the one hand, we have a crucial need for effective and applicable products and systems, on the other hand we have a huge number of talented youth that can potentially create these solutions for us, but never get the opportunity to do that because our educational system is concentrated on theory. We must reorient and tailor our science and engineering curriculum to focus on training students in concrete practical engineering and product development, to produce world-class professional engineers and developers for manufacturing products in Nigeria.

Another strategic area needing innovation is automotive and transportation policy. Most of the vehicles in Nigeria today will become obsolete very soon. This is because the leading momentum in the global automotive industry is in efficiency, renewable energy, automation and safety. Autonomous vehicles that drive themselves, with just a quick input into the onboard computer, the vehicles would navigate traffic by themselves and take you to your destination safely and timely. Therefore, we need a strategic Automotive Policy that prioritizes and supports the development, production and service of renewable energy, which will power Nigerian vehicles, most specifically, pure electric and hybrid cars, commercial and logistics vehicles. Such vehicles must be designed to meet our culture, climate, terrain and economic structure. The production of the vehicles would best be private sector driven with strong support from the government in the form of tax incentives, funding and patronization of products for usage by its various ministries and agencies. We need automotive Policy to support this idea. The policy must go beyond tail end assembly and component fabrication, we need one that empowers Nigerians to play a major role in the design and development of vehicles meant for our streets, cities and territories. To innovate and develop vehicles that would be at home in extreme conditions and with the ability to make irrelevant the rough nature of the roads and terrain. This will require our universities and polytechnics to work in partnership with government, Nigerian automotive stakeholders and international companies to develop curriculum for the transfer of Automotive Sector Technology and Skills into Nigeria.

The next challenge needing our innovation is our housing system. One of the major problems we face as a nation is that of housing for our ever-growing population. This is evidenced in the overcrowded and unsanitary Northern Inner Cities, the substandard homes in the polluted waters of the Niger Delta and other places such as the Lagos Lagoon. How much creativity and innovation is being supported by academia in our housing system? Imagine new progressive ideas in sustainable and affordable architecture and urban planning implemented across the Lagos lagoon, fueled by innovative architects, civil engineers and stakeholder professionals in our universities and polytechnics. Imagine that creative momentum carried into the Niger Delta Creeks, creating marvelous modern neighborhoods, magically suspended above the water. Students must not just study facts written decades ago, but all tertiary institutions located in an economy such as ours must be platforms to inspire and empower students so they can innovate and develop sound solutions which will enhance the lives of citizens everywhere, including the Creeks, Lagoons and Northern Inner Cities,

Innovation can also be applied to Nomadic cattle ranching, which is a serious challenge to development. For hundreds of years the pastoral Fulani have led a productive life as they grow and provided much of the cattle that have fed into the economy of Nigeria and beyond. Today, however, population explosion and lack of strategic policy have brought migratory challenges and conflicts associated with the nomadic lifestyles. How can our Nigerian innovators leverage advanced technology to address this challenge? We need to leverage GPS technology, satellites and solar powered drones to guide the nomads in strategically locating fertile grazing land without trespassing on any farms or private property. Using technology to make their lifestyle and vocation symbiotic with owners of private land. The solar powered drones would also serve as life fines for the delivery of both human and livestock healthcare. The solar powered drones could also be used to deliver targeted educational classes to the children of these nomads, also to other remotely located communities across the country.

Innovation in prenatal and postnatal health care services is equally important. Many Nigerians have no access to healthcare, especially in times of critical need, as with pregnancies and children. Every pregnant woman, and every child must be given utmost priority no matter who they are or where they live: every Nigerian has a right to effective health care and so it is highly imperative that we innovate transportation solutions that will make it possible to take basic and emergency healthcare services to everyone, everywhere, with all the necessary mobile medical equipment for diagnostics and care. And if needed to transport them back to the clinics and health centres for critical administering. There should be collaboration between young and student doctors, software programmers and electronic engineers in developing rugged, compact and affordable medical devices that would be used to make this health care delivery successful

Innovation in renewable energy is critical to our developmental growth. With the abundance of sunlight, there is no reason why any city and settlement should have interrupted energy supply. We have huge potential in both industrial solar generation and in developing portable solar powered solutions which would empower people everywhere, in schools, at home, on the farm and while on hunting or fishing trips. We must collaborate with global solar technology companies and research institutions for establishment of effective solar research and development projects in strategic locations nationwide. We should set up hubs to design, develop, manufacture and services world class solar energy solutions. Similarly, the millions of tonnes of mismanaged garbage tittering our streets need to be used in waste-to-energy power plants, thus providing another source of renewable energy while cleaning up the environment.

Agriculture is our livewire for rapid developmental growth with potential for industrializing the nation quickly. I propose two solutions to revolutionize the agricultural sector; 

1. Establishment of comprehensive Agricultural Mega-Parks, one in each of the 6 geopolitical zones, made up of farm land and comprehensive municipality where the farmers will live. At each location thousands of youth, individually or in cooperatives would be empowered to farm, either as entrepreneurs or employees. These initiatives would not necessarily be individual large scale commercial farms, but each a centralized farming park with all the necessary infrastructure, machinery, water, seed, financing, housing, technical support and associated services with a settlement, including effective health care. The parks should partner with agricultural research institutions from within the country and overseas. These partners should establish satellite laboratories in the parks. This will enable direct research and subsequent injection of advanced agricultural discoveries and procedures.

2. Research and development into the production of low-cost yet highly effective mechanized compact farming equipment, including autonomous robotic systems to empower farmers across the country in improving agricultural productivity and in reducing the laborious and low productivity manual labour with hoes and other rudimentary tools. These innovative tools would be produced in Nigeria, using as much local content as possible.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude by saying that the intellectual capacity and vision of individual citizens are technically what define a country, and so we must strategically ensure that the population is empowered to dream big, to imagine boldly and to go for the impossible, only then can we, as a nation, move forward and achieve true success. We must unlock those powerful capabilities within us, and leverage them to innovate and develop applicable new, technologies, products and business models.