Knowledge economy catalyst for devpt in post Covid-19 era-Expert

An expert on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Mr. Micheal Ale, has observed that the emergence of Covid 19 pandemic has justified the policy of knowledge economy being initiated by Ekiti state  governor,Dr Kayode Fayemi as key to meaningful development.

While noting that the emergence of the pandemic has made the latest innovations of robots and artificial intelligence inevitable products for all nations, Ale recommended urgent and robust boost in industrialization for Nigerian’s recovery and precautionary step against  possible economic recession .

Ale, who is the national President of Association of Waterwell Drilling Rig Owners and Practitioners (AWDROP) in Nigeria, stated this in press a release made available to newsmen in Ado-Ekiti.

He said: “It is not about government policy, it is all about understanding what industrialization is. If we say it is government policy we are looking indepth into aspects of leadership. But if we look into a global perspective as far as United Nations and all over the world are concerned, there is a global policy and a national policy.”

He listed stages of global policy for industrialization that can be of help to the government.

He said the first industrial revolution was when machinery replaced hands in agriculture, the second was the internet and technology, the third was the renewable energy which makes activities faster and the fourth revolution is the robots and artificial intelligence.

Observing that Nigeria is still at the first industrial revolution stage he said: “What really affected our industrialization was the economy that has to do with oil and gas in the second industrial revolution, with that, it gave us concentration on economy when it comes to cash stage we forgot about going to farm, we forget about the fact that we used to have cotton in the north, cocoa in the south and then the oil came.”

Ale is of the view that Covid-19 is the beginning of another revolution in industrialization in the fourth category.

He explained that when  we will start talking about chips, robots, and the likes, all these we are still going to import and this is why the issue of knowledge comes in.

“How many of our universities have research outcomes to use. All these developed countries go to their universities; their businessmen can go to the universities and engage them in researches that would help their development.”

He advocated a serious focus on  research, development and  as the solutions to the country problems food crisis.

“Even if we want to feed ourselves, I am talking about agricultural industry alone, and its allied industries, like the  petrol chemical, we have to look at the way we can get the fertilizers produced and so on . We can start with that. Let us feed ourselves first, let us manage our clothing first, our shoes, our rings etc. Let us do these first before we start talking about exporting.

“If we are at industrial revolution stage one, let us still sustain that first before we move to next stage, and along the line, develop other areas, you can’t say you want to self-sufficient and not have other people working, sustaining development is we are looking at 20 to 30 years ahead and start planning for them” , he said.

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