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8 October 2009
Abuja — Dr Alhassan Zaku, Minister of Science and Technology, on Tuesday urged African University of Science and Technology (AUST), Abuja, to conduct researches into issues that could solve Africa's development problems.
Zaku made the call during his visit to the university campus.
He said that the university was established to be a leading research centre in Africa by providing guidelines to useful researches capable of solving scientific problems.
Zaku said that Nigeria, for instance, had enormous environmental problems ranging from environmental degradation, climate change and inadequate power supply, among others.
"Africa is endowed with abundant resources; yet, people take our raw materials, manufacture goods and sell them to us for consumption," he said.
"It is sad to note that African universities are far behind. The main problem we have with the Nigerian universities is that they do not conduct much research and this is an area which puts universities on a good rating," Zaku said.
Speaking, Prof. Hillary Inyang, President of the university, said that the rationale behind establishing the university was to promote and sustain Africa's development.
He said that the institution had collaborated with some agencies on certain development goals, adding that the partnership had enabled the institution to run Master's and PHD programmes in some areas.
He said that the collaborating agencies included the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), the Directorate of Technical Acquisition in Africa (DTCA), Total, Shell, World Bank and African Development Bank.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the mission of AUST is to advance knowledge and education in science, technology and other areas of scholarship to promote Africa's interests. (NAN)
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