- The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), and Ugandan Embassy in Nigeria have partnered in the areas of renewable energy, technology transfer, agro processing, capacity building, oil and gas and education, among others.
- The agreement was reached when the Uganda High Commissioner to Nigeria, Amb. Nelson Ocheger paid a courtesy visit to the headquarters of NASENI in Abuja, according to a statement.
Prof.Mohammed Sani Haruna, Executive Vice Chairman of the agency, while speaking while receiving the delegation in his office, said the time had come for African leaders to look inward and work together with fellow African countries to develop the continent using their local resources, technology, human capital, including patronage of goods and services produced within the African continent.
He added: “Benefiting from each other’s advancements in technology and innovation is what will take Africa to where we want to be.Other continents do not want us to surpass them because we are their markets.”
He said he believed that the founding fathers of NASENI had the ambition to halt over-dependence on other continents for technology, goods and services, that was why they set up the agency in the first instance.
Presenting the achievements and interventions by the Agency in power, agriculture, education, industries, he reiterated that the mandate of NASENI is to establish and nurture an appropriate and dynamic science and engineering infrastructure for achieving home-initiated and home-sustained industrialisation through the development of relevant processes, capital goods and equipment necessary for job creation, national economic well-being and progress.
In his remarks, the Ugandan High Commissioner to Nigeria Mr. Nelson Ocheger, who was represented by the Charge d’affairs, Brig-Gen Herbert Mbonye, said their mission in NASENI was to identify the possible areas of collaboration with the Nigerian government in areas of technology transfer, renewable energy, agro processing, capacity building, oil and gas and education, among others.
“The only way to achieve such cooperation was by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Federal Government of Nigeria through NASENI, which has a similar mandate with Uganda Research and Development Institute (UREI ) to ensure transfer of appropriate technology for the development of the continent,” said Mbonye.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
