Dr Mustapha Popoola, Executive Director/Global Impact Lead of Research for Impact and Knowledge Economy for Sustainable Development (RIKESD), says Nigeria can earn more than N10 trillion annually through a knowledge-based economy.
Popoola said this at the inauguration of the organisation on Thursday in Abuja.
He said that the nation’s economy could be boosted by attracting Foreign Direct Investment ( FDI) through research funding into the country.
Popoola said that there was a need for government and private organisations, to invest in capacity building to enhance the development of knowledge- based economy
He said that there was no way to solve the nation’s economic problem without productivity.
”Until we have those things that we are producing either in knowledge-based or elsewhere.
”Once that happens across board it is not about categorization, everybody can sit down, you can see many innovations coming from various communities, the moment you have those little contributions, that is how to build the economy.”
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According to him, what we are trying to do is to ensure that we harness all of that.
”In essence we are looking at a captivating knowledge-based economy that can contribute nothing less than N10 trillion to the economy per annum to our national income.
”The national budget today is about N20 trillion. We don’t know what the budget of the new government will be, that is without the knowledge-based economy.
”If we look at the digital economy and innovation alone it is very huge; assuming we now expand the whole knowledge economy, not only digital.
“We are talking about research in agriculture, in space, in the automotive industry, green economy, circular economy,
”We now aggregate that we are confident that N10 trillion naira will be got legally in Nigeria with the contribution of everybody in Nigeria in their little way, ” he said.
He said that was the way the firm believed the economy should be disaggregated.
”That is why we are now coming up with this initiative to partner with government, industry, academia and funder.
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”We want the funder to be interested in Nigeria, why they are running away is because when they fund they are not impactful,”he said.
The Finland Ambassador to Nigeria, Leena Pylvänäinen harped on the need to make innovation a sustainable development
“Finland is a country of innovation; Finland is constantly ranked as one of the most innovative countries in Europe.
“So we know and fully appreciate what today is about making innovation in our sustainable development,” she said.(NAN)