Nigerian
born Inventors, their Inventions, Challenges and Opportunities V
As stated in the previous parts
of this article, list of Nigerian inventors and their inventions can never be exhaustive.
This is rather obvious for a huge and diverse country like Nigeria. Necessity makes people to think
deeply on how to address their problems, constraints and threats against their living condition.
Necessity is the major factor making Nigeria to churn out inventors in
multitude. Invention is about coming up with a great idea, about turning the
idea into a product, about making the product workable and making people to be
aware about the workable product. That the product should not only be
acceptable by the people but should be sellable to recoup the cost of putting
it on the market with profit. Nigerian inventors have shown many workable
products without moving to the next level of making people to be aware of their
products. They are yet to make their products sellable, needless to say making
profit. Invention is a difficult
process, a time consuming one and often exhaustive to the inventors. Many
inventors are disappointed after struggling for years with ideas they couldn't
make to work. Today, some inventors have abandoned their great ideas out of
frustration. What are the challenges to Nigerian inventors? What are the causes
of frustration to transform the inventors great dreams to reality?
The
first challenge is the lack of coherent and comprehensive policy direction on
invention, research and development. What kind of support should government
give to inventors? what is the role of government in encouraging industries to support research, mass produce prototype
machines for commercial purpose? Nelson Eze brought out his frustration in an
interview with The
Guardian Newspaper of 23rd July, 2016. He was reported saying “I have represented
Anambra State government in some exhibitions and I have trophies for them.
Unfortunately the Anambra State government has not deemed it fit to encourage
me. I won gold medals in Junior Science and Technicians in Akwa Ibom in 2011. I
have gone to Abuja twice and in one of such exhibitions the state came first
with my products. Last year, I went to represent Enugu State in Abuja and that
was NTA/ETV Expo 2015. My project was the overall best. I brought them trophy.
It was the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) people that took us to the State
Commissioner for Education, but till date nothing has been done.” Eze is the
inventor of portable generator that uses water instead of gasoline. His
invention was reported in the last week edition of this Column. Kehinde Obasanjo is another frustrated Nigerian inventor, he was reported by Thisday
Newspaper to develop a prototype multi-purpose amphibian jet. Since at the
age of six, he started inventions by constructing toy vehicles that moved
forward and backward. As an undergraduate student of Lagos state university, he
continued with his creative talent and kept on with it. This consequently,
metamorphosed into a clean sample of amphibian jet. However, building the
prototype of his intended brand is not the end of it all; it has to be
transformed into main product. So to Obasanjo, there is one major challenge and
that is, who to fund his big, potentially profitable project. He told the
paper that he has been calling on the government, the corporate entities and
private individuals to lend their hand of help to him but the more he kept
calling and waiting the more his hope was dampened. Policy direction is clearly
needed to address these unending frustrations of our inventors. Sometimes in 2014, I
participated in a one day stakeholders workshop to validate a policy working
document,
titled "Framework For The Nigerian National System Of
Innovation". The document sought to create a strategy for fostering
innovations at all levels by focusing on five key parameters: Platform,
Inclusion, Eco-system, Drivers and Discourse. It was targeted at redefining
innovations to go beyond formal Research & Development parameters;
facilitate platforms of innovative solutions that could lead to inclusive
growth for the Nigerian nation. It was to foster an innovation eco-system
across domains and sectors to strengthen entrepreneurship; focus on key drivers
to ensure green growth, multidisciplinary approach, sustainability, durability
and quality and expand the space for dialogue and discourse on innovation. From
2014 to date, there might have been several efforts made by government and
other relevant stakeholders with insignificant impacts and awareness to the
society. As far as putting in place a clear, coherent, comprehensive and
all-inclusive policy direction on invention and innovation in Nigeria, it is
not yet Uhuru
The
second major challenge is the lackadaisical attitude of investors to support Nigerian
inventors. This challenge is vividly summarized by Chief Okon Essien, the
president-general of Association of Nigerian Inventors in an exclusive
interview with LEADERSHIP of 15th April, 2014. He said “for us to bring out
made-in-Nigeria products of high quality to meet international standard you
have to invest money, that is number one problem. Many investors are not keen
to put venture capital to develop these inventions to marketable products
internationally". He continued “In fact we have very useful products that
can be developed from Nigerian inventions. For example, a power generating plant
just developed by one of our members from overhead water tank. From overhead
water tank, water flows down under pressure, turns a turbine, which turns
alternator to generate power. We have a plant in Warri, our investors have
refused to invest money to perfect that project, nobody is keen to finance it,
they all want readymade products, yet another product, the electricity
generation from the fuel -less generator developed by The Federal Polytechnic
Ilaro, independent inventors worked on
it for perfection but investors are not coming up to invest in it. Essien
further said the unavailability of venture capital companies to assist
inventors with seed capital for their various projects was another problem or
challenge that was inhibiting the development of made-in-Nigeria products. “You
see most of the products you see are made by independent inventors; most of
them roadside mechanics, they don’t have enough capital to do fancy finishing.
You know, when you’re talking of the regular products made by Nigerian
factories, we mean original innovative products that can come out. In order to
finish it, you need the expertise and some of these inventors are not trained
in machining, in design engineering and to do that they have to link up with
experts who will demand money from them and it still boils down to venture
capital. He attributed this abysmal
habits of the investors to lack of "Venture Capital
Companies". He was quoted saying “We
don’t have venture capital companies in this country; by this I mean people who
want to put money where they’re not entirely sure it can succeed. It goes with
risk taking in business. Once this can be promoted then there will be a
noticeable turnaround in the good finishing of Nigerian inventions," He
boasted "we can do what other inventors are doing in China and other
developed countries, however, our problem is the inability of the government
and investors to invest in Nigerian investors and innovators. The lack of faith
of investors and even the government in developing the innovation and
inventions industry is the reason behind Nigeria’s inability to come up with a
globally recognized product”.
Another major challenge to
inventors is the ever-present problem of stopping other people from copying and
profiting from the inventions made people. Although patency of invention is the
strategy to protect ownership of inventions. A patent legally protects the intellectual property
rights of the inventor and legally recognizes that a claimed invention is
actually an invention. Invention not patented can be stolen by others or even a
country such as well known case of yam
pounder, which was invented by Nigerian inventors, but "stolen" out
of the country by another country, mass produced and imported back to Nigeria
with no benefit going to the inventor and Nigeria as a nation. Although, there are rules and requirements for patenting an
invention in Nigeria, but how many inventors are aware of such rules? What is the
process of obtaining a patent for an invention made by a local inventor in a
local community? These are issues needing urgent attention of the policy
makers.
In conclusion, Nigeria has numerous opportunities of
leading the African continent in technological breakthroughs as presented by
the Nigerian born inventors at home and abroad. These opportunities have
potential to make Nigeria great among the comity of nations but potential is
like a large fertile farm with good soil and abandoned water, without
cultivation, the farm will be covered by weeds and dangerous reptiles. This is
a clarion call to all and sundry. Link to the newspaper version
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