Don laments government’s failure to fund research

A professor of pharmacology at the University of Maiduguri, Prof. Isa Marte Hussaini, has decried the government’s failure to fund Research and Development (R&D) in the country.

He lamented that Nigeria spends less than one per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on research while the United States of America (USA) spends billions of dollars on research, adding that the country’s penchant for finished products made it worse for it to invest in R&D.

Hussaini disclosed this in his keynote address titled, “Science as Driver of Development: The Importance of Communication,” during the launch of the African Science and Literacy Network (ASLN) organised by TRenD yesterday in Abuja.

He explained any country that does not prioritise R&D was doomed to fail as countries that are determined to forge ahead talk science, eat science and breath science” which he said was not the case in Nigeria.