As I watched the coverage of the UK’s much-talked-about Royal Engagement on CNN earlier this evening, I just could not help asking myself, ‘Where will this end?’ Forgive my unholy curiosity but if you know what I know, you will most likely ask the same questions. The last royal wedding in the UK cost so high. Even though the total expenditure was not reported, we now know that the engagement ring was worth £30,000 in 1981 (the equivalent of today’s £85,700). How large is the ring? Just the size of a walnut. What is it made of? 14 small diamond pieces surrounding a sapphire. Who made it? London-based crown jewellers, Garrard & Co. The wedding dress, with a 25-foot train, was worth £9,000 in 1981. That’s roughly equal to £25,700 today – £4,700 more than what many a full wedding would cost today. Today, the average cost of a complete wedding is estimated at £21,000. That is clearly extravagant and shows, to me, some misplaced priority. The day of the wedding was declared a national holiday in the UK; and the whole world watched in awe (the estimated live audience for that wedding was over 750 million) as the world’s most famous royal family took among its ranks a beautiful damsel by the name of Diana Frances Spencer. Fifteen years and two months later, the marriage, despite its extensive celebration, ended in divorce. The story here begs a plain question: rather than spend that much on the pomp and pageantry surrounding the wedding, shouldn’t much more investments have been made into fidelity and honour on which the wedding should rest?
Well, a reflection of values it is!
In case you don’t know, the world is beginning to talk about the cost of Prince William’s wedding and where the money will come from; and somehow, the Royal accounts are not smiling. Pundits say that if the queen is not careful about dipping into the reserve fund built for her in the 1990s, it will run out by her Diamond Jubilee in 2012. To that end, total Royal Household spending is to be cut by 14 per cent in 2012/13 based on the Queen’s agreement; the £50,000 Christmas Party of Buckingham Palace has been cancelled and demands are being made by The Department for Culture for a 25% cut in maintenance costs for the palaces and Royal travel costs (this maintenance cost alone costs the Culture Department up to £15m annually). To make matters worse, the Royal Wedding is expected to come much ahead of the Queen’s jubilee, adding pressure to the government's depleted purses and further threatening the Queen's reserve funds. I can guess what you’re thinking: Can’t they simply reduce this spending? Must the wedding cost so much?
Well, I don’t know but it’s a question of value systems.
Earlier this year, Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria married her personal trainer Daniel Westling. The wedding took $11.4m of Swedish public funds – even in the presence of economic crises and the ongoing debate in the country over the future of the monarchy.
What do you make of all of these? For me, it’s a simple question: what does value mean to you, to me and to them?
Supported with material from http://www.channel4.com/news/prince-williams-wedding-who-will-pay and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrard_%26_Co
‘Sometimes, a single conversation with the right person can more valuable than many years of study’. (John Mason)
Counsel does not mean advice. Most people take them to mean the same thing. They may be synonymous but they’re not the same. While advice is the adviser’s opinion, counsel is simply the counselor’s analysis or appraisal. Advice comes in pieces but have you ever heard anyone speak of a piece of counsel? An adviser tells you what he thinks you should or could do; a counsellor shows you the options and helps you understand them, then the choice is yours to make!
Anyone who is serious about success will care to know that the most important things are not people’s opinions (honest or not) but their sincere analysis or appraisal of you or what you do. That’s why sportsmen keep coaches. Imagine you are a sprinter. You just ran a race and came last. You meet your coach and all he has to say is, ‘You should have run faster.’ Days turn into weeks and he says nothing more. I can bet you won’t keep that coach.
But if he approaches you and says, ‘You didn’t make it out there because you didn’t run fast enough. Your steps were stiff and your thighs didn’t pump high enough. Again, you were landing flat footed.’ And then he goes on to tell you how to correct those errors. I bet you’ll keep that coach.
By now you should know how counsel differs from advice. People don’t succeed on only pieces of advice - just like you can’t live on pieces of food. You need meals. You need counsel. Your peace depends on it.
‘In the multitude of counselors there is safety’ (King Solomon)
‘You don’t always have all the information, know-how, or time you need to overcome the obstacles between you and goals’ (Don Gabor)
From the very beginning, man has been seen to work best in teams. The Creator did not see His work as complete unlit he gave man a helper in the garden of Eden. No man can succeed all by himself. There must he inputs from others. Knowing how to get the best from the people around you brings out the best in you.
The dynamics of achievement leaves no room for isolation. I am yet to know of any man on top who got there absolutely by himself. While you concentrate on your work, someone takes care of the details for you.
Getting inputs from others is what Don Gabor called ‘using outside resources’ in his book, Big Things Happen when you do the little things right’. He said, ‘By using outside resources, you can focus on what you do best and attain the help you need to achieve your dreams. Surround yourself with the best people you can find.’ And I say, make these people feel important.
Make them share in the success. The importance of this is illustrated in the following story.
A master pianist once played in a concert before a large audience. He had played many great pieces and was enthusiastically applauded. At a point, he stood up, doffed his hat and bowed to the crowd, saying; ‘Now I’m going to conclude by playing Beethoven’s 8th symphony’. To his utter dismay, when he sat down and fingered the keyboard, no sound came out. Now, it was in those days when someone had to stay backstage to pump the bellows. Not knowing what was wrong, the pianist thumbed angrily on the piano. Still, no sound. Then a little head peeped from behind the curtains and whispered, ‘Say “We”.
‘The single most important word in our language (American English) is “We” (Michael LeBoeuf)
What you're about to read is the full text of a recent address by the Nigerian Minister of Science and Technology. I helped to prepare the text and I saw in it, when I carefully read it later, a lot of optimism and positive disposition. I saw a paradigm: THAT NIGERIA WILL BE BIG AGAIN IS NOT THE QUESTION; THE REAL QUESTION IS WHEN AND THROUGH WHOM?
UTILIZING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TO DRIVE VISION 2020
INTRODUCTION
I am delighted to give the keynote address at this year’s Diaspora Day on the theme ‘’Nigeria and the Diaspora: Utilizing Science and Technology to Drive Vision 2020” and I consider this occasion an auspicious forum to welcome our fellow compatriots to a New Nigeria. I am proud to say that we have a focused government which is committed to taking the country to an enviable height. I am aware that some of us have been away from the country for quite some time now and may therefore not be conversant with the spirited efforts of President Yar’adua’s administration to reposition
Let me say here that this annual event must not be seen as a rite, which as a matter of necessity must take place. Rather, we should see it as an opportunity to appraise where we are coming from, where we are and intellectually project into the future. This government is clearly charting the path we should all follow through the development agenda tagged Vision 20/2020, which is specifically designed to leapfrog our country into the rank of the twenty biggest economies in the world by year 2020. But to achieve this, we must all be reminded that developing countries that successfully transited from the backwaters to the industrial delight necessarily attached great importance to Science and Technology.
S&T AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The manner in which we will proceed in this gathering depends greatly on how we perceive science and technology and its role in national development. Traditionally, science is defined as systematic inquiry into the workings of nature with a view to understanding and directing these for human benefits while technology is simply taken as the application of science. Today, science and technology (S&T) are best perceived as a ‘twin-concept’ – meaning that one cannot exist without the other. It is now impossible to discuss issues about technology without mentioning science, just as it is impossible to pursue science without technology. In fact, science and technology have become so closely related that the one now depends on the other for its development. The concept of S&T today refers to the totality of activities that culminate in the application of original or derived knowledge for human benefits.
S&T combine human knowledge with the ability to produce and use tools and machines in order to solve real life problems. In our case, the immediate problems to solve are those of poverty and unemployment; and in the long term, to position our nation as one of the first 20 economies of the world in the next 12 years. Our challenge, now, is how we can use science and technology to achieve these clear objectives. The import of this challenge comes out more clearly when we remember that the main cause of the competitive gap between us and the so-called developed world is the creation and application of knowledge; and that the rules of competition today is more dependent on national capabilities to exploit resources rather than just gloat over possessing them. This is exemplified in the fact that many of the industrialised countries of the world today are poorly endowed with natural resources and less than friendly weather conditions. Yet, they have attained leadership in the world economy, essentially through the effective application of S&T. Ironically; the least industrialised nations are those with rich resource and favourable climatic endowments.
It is important for us to appreciate the potency of S&T to bring about significant changes in our local, state and national lives. Investments in S&T always pay off, sometimes immediately, but always in the long run. Specifically, countries like the
GOVERNMENT, S&T AND VISION 20-2020
Fellow compatriots, as laudable as the country’s vision 20-2020 is, it behooves us all as concerned citizens and key stakeholders that certain areas of our national lives are critical to the realization of our collective aspiration of being among the first 20 economies by the year 2020. Let us, for a moment, reflect by asking ourselves: exactly what does it take to arrive at this destination? where do we stand presently? and how do we proceed from here? The convocation of this forum lends credence to our common realization that science and technology will play a critical role. Notwithstanding, at national level, we need to take definite actions in specific areas if S&T must help us to deliver on our national aspirations. It is known, for instance, that a country’s innovation capacity – that is, the ability to create and/or apply new knowledge to solve practical problems – greatly depends on four indices: the country’s level of technological capability; the formal and informal institutions as well as their supporting systems; physical infrastructure; and an advanced knowledge infrastructure.
Using the above criteria, our dear country currently stands at 71st position out of 75 countries in a recent rigorous assessment by one of our own, Prof. Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, who currently heads UN-HABITAT in
Table 1: Basic Facts about selected entrants into the top 20 economies by 2025
| | Population | Literacy | Poverty | GDP | GDP Growth | Teledensity | Power Generation |
| Million | (Adult%) | (Level %) | $ per cap | % | % | bnkwh | |
| | | | | | | | |
| | 1,330 | 91 | 8 | 5,300 | 11.4 | 63 | 3,260 |
| | 1,150 | 61 | 25 | 2,700 | 9.2 | 23 | 662 |
| | 86 | 90 | 14 | 2,600 | 8.5 | 51 | 596 |
| | 254 | 97 | 30 | 3,400 | 7.3 | 20 | 542 |
| | 81 | 71 | 20 | 5,500 | 7.0 | 36 | 103 |
| | 38 | 85 | 50 | 1,700 | 7.0 | 18 | 5.5 |
| | 168 | 50 | 24 | 2,600 | 6.4 | 41 | 90 |
| | 140 | 68 | 70 | 2,000 | 6.4 | 30 | 23 |
| | 23 | 58 | 28 | 1,400 | 6.4 | 24 | 7 |
| | 25 | 89 | 5 | 13,300 | 6.3 | 95 | 83 |
| | 238 | 90 | 17 | 3,700 | 6.3 | 33 | 126 |
| | 44 | 87 | 50 | 9,800 | 6.1 | 101 | 264 |
| | 66 | 77 | 18 | 10,600 | 5.8 | 54 | 170 |
| | 153 | 43 | 45 | 1,300 | 5.6 | 13 | 21.4 |
| | 191 | 87 | 31 | 9,700 | 5.4 | 72 | 400 |
Source: Adapted from Maduka (2008)
The previous administration had declared the intention to pursue the vision of placing
DRIVING THE VISION WITH S&T: ENGAGING THE DIASPORA
Ladies and Gentlemen, look around you and you will see absolutely no area of our national life where S&T does not have a role to play. We at the Federal Ministry have realized, and in the last 3 to 4 years we have committed ourselves deeply to driving our national dreams and aspirations with S&T. Let me mention some key areas in which the Ministry is currently leading action, and where, I believe, our compatriots in the disapora can make significant contributions:
- Nanotechnology: this is geared towards renewable energy production and medical therapy.
- Advanced Manufacturing Technology: geared towards revamping the ailing industrial sector of the economy. You will agree with me that this sector is our sterling hope for achieving the vision.
- Space and ICT: we know that space technology has wide applicability in our economy. For instance, I can tell you about 13 sectors where we can immediately and directly apply space technology. ICT applications are specifically directed towards e-governance, e-commerce and e-administration.
- Biotechnology: developing drugs and useful enzymes from our abundant natural plants. Our successes so far include the famous sickle-cell medications developed, patented and packaged by our agencies
- Atomic Energy: our target is to generate up to 20 000MW of power the year 2017, and we believe it is possible. In fact, right now, our National Atomic Energy Commission is committed to training 2000 young Nigerians and 11 Nigerian universities have been designated as Centres of Excellence in this regard.
- Innovation Studies: we are systematically mapping the innovativeness of our industrial sector with a view to better understanding the problem and designing evidence-based policies.
In all of these areas, the government is making concerted efforts to strengthen the concerned agencies and parastatals. We are also committed to developing the capacity of these institutions to create and absorb new knowledge through R&D. We therefore invite you all to partake in this success-bound journey. You can be directly involved in areas where you have expertise. At the same time, it would be highly beneficial if you get some of your friends and associates out there to help you in building your fatherland. Remember that you have been doing that for them since you sojourned there! Now, every agency and parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology has an active and regularly updated website through which you could get information directly from and to them. That way, much of the bureaucracies that we have always complained about can be skipped. By next year when we shall gather again, we want to be able to list the names of those Nigerians in the diaspora who have done something; and I promise you, nothing that you do will be overlooked, no matter how little. The time to act is now.
THE ROLE OF THE NIGERIAN DIASPORA
In meeting the challenge of improving the Nigerian economy the role of the Nigerian Diaspora cannot be overlooked. Our brothers and sisters, compatriots who have excelled in their various trades and professions overseas, need to partner with us extensively in the areas of human capital formation, infrastructural development and demand-driven research and development (R&D). I am particularly excited that this annual conference offers an opportunity for that to occur. The requirements of our vision are enormous and we could use all the help we can muster, especially from our kindred who live and work abroad. A good place to start is to attract foreign direct investment into the country. I am glad to say that the business environment in our country has indeed improved and it is now easier, more than ever before, to invest in
The place of human capital cannot be overemphasized in the quest for national development. This is another key area that our compatriots in the Diaspora could be of immense assistance. Creating and/or supporting local manpower development institutions would be greatly beneficial for the common good. One such commendable initiative is the establishment of centres of excellence in ICT training by AfriHub LLC. The contributions of our nationals such as Prof. Wole Soboyejo to the creation and operation of the Mandela Institute for Knowledge Building and The Advancement of Science and Technology in Sub-Saharan Africa by our own is also worthy of mention. Let me state emphatically that there is still room for much more. Endowing scholarships, fellowships, university chairs and foundations are also very useful. Let us join hands to create the critical mass of S&T human resources that our nation needs urgently to develop.
CONCLUSION
At this juncture, let me once again remind us before I leave this podium that we should all join hands together to ease the pains of today while working for the gains of tomorrow. Let us set aside cynicism, and strive for the good society that we know is within of our reach. We should jettison the habit to low expectations of ourselves as well as our leaders. Let us stop justifying every shortcoming with that unacceptable phase, “the Nigerian factor,” as if to be a Nigerian is to settle for less. Let us capture the mood of optimism that defined us at the dawn of independence, that legendary can-do spirit that marked our Nigerianness. Let us join together to build a society worthy of our children. We have the talent. We have the intelligence. We have the ability. But we have to be aware of one fact: It is not what we know that matters but what we do with what we know. Our country needs us all. Together we shall realize the country’s Vision 2020. It requires our commitment and strong conviction. And I believe Science and Technology is a veritable tool to drive it.The Government of President Yar’adua is committed to providing the political will.
Thank you and God bless for your rapt attention.
Grace Ekpiwhre, mni
Honourable Minister for Science and Technology
