The Deputy Governor of Edo State, Philip Shaibu, has been denied access to his old office at the Government House in Benin, the state capital.

Shaibu arrived at the Government House on Monday morning but met the gate leading to his office under lock and key.

He says he has yet to receive a formal letter from the governor’s office and that, according to him, is the proper channel to transmit a directive pertaining to the relocation to a new office

“Up till now, I don’t have any official communication that I should relocate. The only people that have official communication are my civil servants. The civil servants have official communication but I don’t. As I am speaking to you now, I am standing by the gate,” he said while on a phone call to a yet-to-be-identified person.

The Edo State Governor has not reacted to the development, but sources close to him say Shaibu has relocated his office to a new location outside of the Government House and was not expected at the old office.

They also explained that there was no meeting scheduled for Monday so the Deputy Governor was not expected at the Government House.

If a meeting had been scheduled, they said arrangements would have been made and the Deputy Governor would have been allowed to attend.

Last week, a letter said to be from the office of the Head of Service, Anthony Okungbowa, was reported to have been sent to the Permanent Secretary, Office of the Deputy Governor directing Shuaibu to relocate to a new office situated at No 7, Dennis Osadebey Avenue, GRA, Benin City.

However, sources close to Edo’s number two citizen claimed that the new office is abandoned and in dire need of rehabilitation.

Director- General of National Centre for Technology Management, (NACETEM), Dr John Omimakinde said with Science, Technology and Innovations (STI), Nigeria can transform from over dependence on oil revenue to a diversified economy.

Omimakinde said this at the 2023 STI Expo in Abuja on Wednesday.

He said that, if the STI sector was well harnessed, it would be a panacea to a strongly diversified Nigeria economy.

” For decades, scholars, policy makers, academics and practitioners have been engaged in heated debates that Nigeria’s development challenge is the ‘oil curse’.

“It is believed that the bane of development is the over dependence on a mono-product, crude oil.

“Recent happenings in the country have shown that Nigeria’s major development challenge is not the ‘oil curse’, but of not achieving economic diversification beyond it’s dependence on oil revenue,” Omimakinde said.

The NACETEM D-G confirmed that successive governments had looked beyond oil by shifting their attention to areas such as agriculture and the informal sector, among others, which yielded substantial results.

Omimakinde acknowledged that actualising the objective of successfully diversifying Nigeria’s economy beyond what was presently operational required looking in the direction of STI.

“NACETEM as a foremost knowledge support and policy research institution is convinced that the current STI policy can put us in the right direction.

“All we need to achieve sustainable development and diversification of Nigeria’s economy is contained therein, but it appears we have not fully deployed it appropriately.

“This has to change as implementing the STI policy as reviewed in 2022 will set Nigeria on the path of wealth,” he said.

Mrs Monilola Udoh, Permanent Secretary of the STI Ministry, assured that President Muhammadu Buhari had reaffirmed his commitment to his pledge allocating 0.5 per cent of GDP to funding research and innovations.

She said the Federal Government was actually funding researches which are domiciled in the ministry.

Udoh decried the lack of synergy among research institutes and others.

She also said: ”There were duplications of research works being carried out,” and urged for adequate communications, collaborations and cooperation among government agencies for value addition.

Mr Haastrup Olatunji, Chairman of NACETEM Governing Board, corroborated that Nigeria ran a mono-cultural economy as 85 per cent of her revenue was derived from oil and gas export.

He said: ”Naysayers may see that as not being good because of perceived neglect of other sectors of the economy.

“It is important to stress that lamenting the situation will bring us no good

“Rather, thinking through how to better the lot of Nigeria is what we require.

“STI is relevant to all sectors of the economy, it is an enabler of rapid growth and development,”Olatunji said.(NAN)

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the revised Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy instituted 10 years ago.

Nigeria’s Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, disclosed this on Wednesday while briefing State House reporters on the outcome of the virtual FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.

According to him, the approval shows the Federal Government’s commitment to improving the standard of living of Nigerians.

“We believe that this will help our country to keep narrowing the gap between us and the technologically advanced countries of the world.

We should be able also to overtake the way nations like China have done,” the minister said.

“There’ve been tremendous advances in science, technology, and innovation all over the world and this necessitated the need for our science, technology and innovation policy which was put in place in 2012, 10 years ago, to be revised so that we can keep pace with new and emerging technologies.

“The main objective is for us to use science, technology, and innovation, to improve the standard of living of our citizens and ensure that we have a high quality of life for all Nigerians.

And this we can get if our nation becomes more prosperous, and our economy is more globally competitive.

“Again, we’ll like to see Nigeria using this policy, to be one of the top scientific powers in the world.

We believe that this will help our country to keep narrowing the gap between us and the technologically developed countries of the world.”