Vice President Kashim Shettima on Thursday inaugurated an Interministerial Committee on Research and Innovation.
He tasked its members to ensure food security in Nigeria, as well as energy security to power the economy and break the nation’s dependence on imports.
The committee, according to him, is part of ongoing efforts by the administration of President Bola Tinubu to pool intellectual and financial capital to “create the cockpit from which Nigeria’s innovation economy will be piloted”.
Speaking during the inauguration of the Interministerial Committee on Research and Innovation at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Shettima pointed out that the mission is to build Nigeria into a trillion-dollar economy within 10 years.
“We are here to breathe life not into this Committee, but into a bold mission: to build Nigeria into an innovation-driven, trillion-dollar economy within a decade. The future we desire is not something we inherit. It is something we build,” he declared.
The Vice President observed that innovation is the currency of every civilisation, even as he said, while no society grows by staying the same, Nigeria cannot hope to evolve for the better unless it invests in learning new things, compares what it has with what others nations have, and comparing where it is now with where it wants to be.
“None of this is possible without research—the mother of all the inventions that have guided humanity through the waves of the Industrial Revolutions. This gathering, therefore, is a declaration of our collective resolve to till the soil, explore the seas, and scout the space of knowledge to understand the consequences of our choices. I am truly inspired by the promise of what we are setting out to achieve here,” he stated.
On the committee’s terms of reference, Shettima said it is to coordinate action in five strategic sectors with the power to transform society.
He listed the committee’s terms of reference to include “Agriculture and Climate Resilience, where research innovation must feed our people and protect our planet; Manufacturing Excellence, where we break our dependency on imports and build proudly Nigerian supply chains; Healthcare Innovation, where we shift from importing medicines to exporting medical breakthroughs; Natural Resource Optimisation, where we stop selling raw materials and start exporting ingenuity; and Energy Security, where we power our economy and secure our future.”
The Vice President explained that a major target for setting up the committee is to reduce Nigeria’s food import bill by 50 per cent, maintaining that “in each of these areas, we will pursue missions, not just metrics.
“We will not be content with data for dashboards—we want deliverables that change lives. What will it take to reduce our food import bill by 50%? How do we triple local pharmaceutical production? Let us align policy, research, and investment to answer these questions and achieve measurable, meaningful outcomes,” he added.
FG inaugurates Interministerial Committee on Research, Innovation
