Director-General of the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) Engr Dan-Azumi Mohammed Ibrahim, has said that the organisation saved over N200 billion for the government by executing agreements between Nigerian entrepreneurs and foreign partners. He spoke with BINTA SHAMA
How well has the organisation actualised its mandate?
NOTAP is established to regulate the inflow of foreign technology into the country and also has a responsibility to promote and encourage the development of local technologies. If you look at the mandate, we have the responsibility to encourage Nigerian entrepreneurs to develop them to have good negotiating skills, for transfer of agreement signed, and also expected to see the adoption of foreign technology that is coming into the system, we cannot reinvent the will but we can allow technology to come into the system and now absorb them and transform them to become Nigeria’s technology. Also to improve on the culture and intellectual property rights so the inflow of technology is done through registration flow for technology transfer agreements. Like, if a Nigerian entrepreneur is trying to manufacture a Nigerian outfit and looks within and doesn’t get a competent technical partner to assist him establish this industry, that is the only option can look outside to get such partner that is verse in the knowledge of that particular material.
The agreement where he and the foreign partner enters is where we come in, by registering it. We put it through a thorough evaluation processes which are majorly in three forms thus; legal, economic, and technical perspectives respectively. The main reason is because sometimes agreements are crafted from outside with little or no regards for Nigeria which we have a law guiding and operating such industries in the country. We make sure that the amount paid is commensurate to the technology that is coming in, here the more the complexity of the technology the more percentage you get.
Where we are satisfied with this major perspective, we go further to inspect (for a first timer). Where we are satisfied with the requirements that the venture or factory is truly established, we issue certificate amongst others to CBN for the payment of their technical partners for the execution of the project. Within this agreement where we have competent Nigerians to execute it we insist Nigerians are used rather than foreigners, through this process we have saved Nigeria over 200 billion that would have been capital flight.
Can you mention specifically the impact NOTAP has made?
Our role is promotion, if there is any innovation in the system we promote it. We enlighten the public on the need for it to protect whatever innovation will come into the system, that is, the first stage of commercialisation. Our role is to draw the attention of the universities to focus in terms of research development to reduce the level of funding.
We have been able to assist researchers to change the culture of their researched intellectual property. It was very weak in research establishment because coming up with a new innovation you must meet with the first stage which is commercialisation, if not, the product of one’s mental ability could be used to make money where not protected. We came in purposely to protect intellectual property in 2006. Before we came in we were getting 6 to 7 patents a year, last year we got 60, but presently we have 38 patent certificates and we are hoping by the end of this year, we will achieve our target of 50.
Adaptation and promotion of indigenous technology to local needs is part of your mandate, is Nigeria fairing well in this regards?
Honestly, like any other sector, we are trying, like the educational sector where those technology are supposed to emanate are not well funded, but, not withstanding some technologies are coming out. As a regulator, we have to see where we will need to put our feet firm to ensure that Nigeria as a nation is getting the best out of the relationship. From the registration exercise we realised that at least 60% of all the requests are on software and they keep coming in countless. We sat down and observed that quantum amount of money that goes out of Nigeria lies on people’s software which are developed by young talented individuals and we have such competent youngsters in the country and we need to come out with strategies empowering Nigerians to do it rather than to continue importing it. Due to this, we came out with a local policy AKA local vendor policy, any software coming into Nigeria before we register it, there must be a local vendor that is a Nigerian computer farm which is into software development. They must be involved in the software coming into the country and its maintenance. If you involve very intelligent Nigerians in the deployment and involvement of that software, whether they like it or not we capture some of this technologies which could build financial muscles for the local computer farms involved.
For the indigenous ones we don’t provide them with funds but rather promote their work, and provide them with resources.
Every year we give out grants to investors who have been able to establish innovation in order to move them to the next level.
How well are we doing as a nation to discover and tap our young talents?
To be candid, recession has given us a great deal of opportunity in the sense that before we were getting a fantastic stock exchange instead of crude oil, so, now we have the luxury of importing tooth pick but now the oil market has crashed. when Nigeria went into recession which has made us to think deep to see how we can diversify our economy and that is the only opportunity for us to move as a nation because we only have been relying on crude oil.
Now we have talents, technologies are from the universities, what we don’t do is coordinating the activities of our research and technology efforts, so that we can reduce technology coming into the country. Now the money is not coming and our eyes are widely open, looking around to see how we can reduce importation and increase exportation from our various works. Typical example is the LAKE rice between Lagos and Kebbi state which has made a tremendous impact, recession made us to think back into advancing ourselves as a nation and how to utilise our talents.
Diversification of the economy is in vogue under the Buhari administration, how is your agency keying into making the right impact?
Where we insist Nigerians with talents be used for local contents, for instance an industry was importing calcium carbonate from China, we had to intervene and alert them that we have deposits of this calcium within, though with QUAT but we need technology to remove this QUATS, then we bring Nigeria’s carbonate with classification which we
gave them a deadline to do this or else next time we will not register the process. As I am talking to you, within a year and half that factory is sourcing calcium carbonate locally worth N140 million from a small industry that was importing. Now the advantage is the industry is expanding, exporting more calcium resources, creating jobs for citizens, other industries will have to cue in and which we will be able to diversify through this process.
Now, soft ware are being developed by Nigerians, we have a local content committee in support of this between NOTAP and National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
