The Nigerian Academy of Engineering (NAE) has canvassed a some measures of restriction on the importation of solar panels by government agencies.

President of the Academy, Prof. Raifu Isola Salawu, said in Abuja that the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) also produce thousands of solar panels locally, government should give the agency a share of its solar panel needs instead of importing everything.

Salawu, who spoke when the Academy visited the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonaya Onu, stressed that the panels rot away at the agency’s Karshi production centre government agencies shuttle abroad to ferry in panels produced in China and other countries.

He also called for a legislation to make it compulsory for locally made bricks to be used for certain kinds of house construction in Nigeria.

“ We need backward integration of technology in Nigeria. We want our country to challenge Nigerian engineers to find solutions to national problems. We want our country to use us to help the country”, he stressed.

Speaking, Onu called for the assistance of the engineers in diversifying the country’s economy, noting that government was working to strengthen and stabilize the economy by diversifying.

He noted: “We will also help to create jobs. Nigerian would be at a level where every Nigerian would be proud of his or her country. We import virtually everything. Over the years we haven’t paid sufficient attention to science and technology. I am calling on all Nigeria as we can do better than we are doing now. Don’t forget that by importing so much we are putting so much pressure of the currency. That is why the Naira is becoming weaker and weaker.

We want to be a nation where we can produce all the things we need. This ministry is very important in doing so because we want to make sure that we many of the things we import today we can produce them in Nigeria and also involve the new technologies.”

He went on: “We are also going to work with the academy of engineering to make sure that we improve on the engineering services in the country, because I know that if we can effectively revitalize the engineering resources we have in Nigeria we would go far better than any other country.”

Responding to the call for patronage of locally made solar panels, he stressed that government has given NASENI the additional mandate of producing solar cells as a way of boosting the local solar panel production industry.

His words: “NASENI is already producing solar panels but we are giving them a mandate. We want them to move back and produce the cells. You know that panels’ production is like assembling the cells but we now want to start producing the cells here in Nigeria. Don’t forget the mission of the Ministry is not to commercialize this product but our aim is to do the research and developmental work. We get it to a level it can be commercialized then every sector would come in like the business sector will come in to commercialize it.

“NASENI is going to now move backwards to do research and developmental works on the solar cells. There are three stages in developing the cells, firstly you specify the design, specify the materials to be used, and then you supervise the project during construction. At the moment NASENI is wiring and making solar panels but there are various levels, firstly is making the cells, putting the cells together, then package them.”