The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), has approved N8.5 billion naira for the conduct of ground-breaking research in medicine and other areas in 2021, under the National Research Fund, a scheme funded by the Tertiary Education Trust.
Executive
Secretary of TETFund, Prof Suleiman Bogoro, disclosed this on Wednesday, at a
three-day workshop for Directors of Research and Development of public
universities in Nigeria, held at the Central Bank of Nigeria Training
Institute, Maitama, Abuja.
Bogoro
said, “With your support, I made a case to the board of trustees to increase
the NRF research grants. Initially, we had seed money of N3b, it got exhausted
and N1b was added between 2016 and 2019.
“But when I
came, I decided to revolutionise it and I said it is not a question of seed
money, let it be annual funding. And that is why I made a case for N5b in 2019
alone. In 2020, we raised it to N7.5bn.
“This year,
Mr President has approved another N7.5b but guess what? with additional N1b
that we intend to do ground-breaking research around medicine even in respect
of the Covid-19 challenge.”
The TETFund
boss said the agency intended to fund the Nigerian Institute of Medical
Research to resuscitate their vaccine production.
He added
that he has scheduled a meeting with the Director-General of NIMR, Prof
Babatunde Salako, to be joined by brilliant professors of medicine from some
universities across the country to achieve specific research objectives.
Bogoro,
however, decried the failure of research institutes to establish a good
relationship with universities to promote research and development, state that
universities are also guilty of disregarding them.
He stressed
the need for collaboration between the universities and research institutes.
While
urging participants at the workshop to take the initiative of looking at why
kidnapping has become so lucrative, the TETFund boss lamented that young
engineers and technology experts were rather deploying their expertise to aid
the growing wave of abductions across the country.
He
challenged university professors not to only parade themselves with titles but
to engage in problem-solving research that will change things for the good of
the nation.
Earlier,
TETfund Director of Research and Development, Dr Salisu Bakare, noted that
universities are by nature problem-solvers, adding that when universities are
not solving problems of the society, the question remains whether they are
achieving their mandate.
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