The federal government in collaboration with the government of South Africa has come to a conclusion to sign a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by exchanging ideas and experiences in order to push the economy of the African continent, to the next level.
Speaking, the Director General National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) Dr. Dan’Azumi Mohammed Ibrahim said that developed nations are driven by knowledge and that the African continent should not be left out.
Ibrahim, stated this when a delegations of African Institute of South Africa (AISA) and Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa (DTCA) led by the Director General DTCA Amb. Rabiu Dagari paid NOTAP a working visit on Thursday, in Abuja.
“You see, the whole world is driven by knowledge, we have capacities in African continent and African countries seem to have similar problems, so relationships between Africa countries to help one another, will be much more enduring than the relationship between the developed and developing nations.
The developed nations always want to capitalize and squeeze the developing countries for their own developing strategies. So where we have Africans assisting Africans, the cost of development will be less. So there’s need for us to synergize efforts between African countries to see how we share experiences and knowledge for the overall development of the whole African continent and no African country can do it alone. As far as Africa is concerned, these two countries are the two giants of Africa and Nigeria has what South Africa doesn’t have and vice versa from the discussions. So if we synergize efforts, we will be able to see how we can move our respective nations and Africa, forward and we cannot afford to be behind the great move,” the DG NOTAP added.
Earlier, the Director Research AISA Dr. Thokozami Simelone said the aim of their visit is to reinforce the bilateral ties with Nigeria to save Africa from being backward technological wise.
“We are here to strengthen bilateral ties from the lovely country of Nigeria. Actually it will strengthen the continent in the sense that both countries are very special in the continent and if they engage in the development of knowledge, as well as the intellectual capital through the clear agreement as to how those things are to be done.
“Certainly, the continent would be strengthen and there are pillars that are actually contained in the agenda 2063, of which some of them entails the industrialization of the continent, entails the feeding of the continent by developing food and increasing the capacity of the continent for developing its own food as well as also making sure that the continent is integrated. And the countries that have the capabilities to see these pillars being realised are certainly Nigeria and South Africa.”
The Visiting International Research Fellow AISA Prof Hilary Inyang said the African continent must have an entity that provides opportunity to extract the intellect of its people to run processes, produce goods and services. “So the African continental foundation is one of this, so it will be created to help African government, communities, be there at the levels of professors or community folks. Just doing something at the community sector, to bring their ideas to bear on the development of solutions to help in solving problems in Africa.
“One of the reasons of creating an entity of research work is to review technologies in Africa, not only those that have come in from the outside but those that have been inspired by indigenous knowledge. Africa, we have being doing things before the advent of people from Europe or anywhere else into Africa, there were empires there before the mining of gold in Ghana, so many things going on. Mali, great universities in Timbuktu and the Egyptians also were great in mathematics and philosophy. So it isn’t like the African foundation will come and create something new, it is really on something that has always been rooted in Africa,” Inyang stated.