By Joseph Mbah,Abuja<\/p>\n
House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology has accused the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Dr. Kingsley Tochukwu Udeh of
\nundermining President Bola Tinubu\u2019s efforts to establish a National Research and Innovation Development Fund in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Unhappy with submission of the Minister, Lawmakers there after threatened to escalate the matter to the floor of the House where necessary palaimentary sanction will be melted out to the duo. <\/p>\n
The C’ttee also expressed displeasure over the Minister failure to attend a public hearing on a bill seeking to establish the Fund (HB 2821), despite being the head of the ministry directly responsible for its implementation.<\/p>\n
It also faulted the ministry for failing to send the Permanent Secretary to represent it, describing the absence as unacceptable, particularly as the bill was sponsored by the executive and transmitted to the National Assembly by President Tinubu.<\/p>\n
The committee chairman Hon. Zakariya Zannah used the opportunity to warn that the ministry\u2019s failure to participate in the legislative process could delay the passage of the bill and frustrate efforts to position Nigeria to attract research grants from international development partners, donor agencies and Nigerians in the diaspora.<\/p>\n
During the hearing, a member of the committee, Hon. Ahmed Usman Jaha, who represents Chibok, Damboa and Gwoza Federal Constituency of Borno State, described the ministry\u2019s absence as an act of sabotage against the cordial relationship between the executive and legislative arms of government.<\/p>\n
Jaha, speaking on behalf of the committee, said it was difficult to understand why a ministry whose portfolio directly covered the subject of an executive-sponsored bill would fail to participate in its consideration.<\/p>\n
He said the proposed Fund was designed to coordinate and finance research institutions across the country while providing a structured mechanism for attracting grants from international organisations, development partners and Nigerians in the diaspora.<\/p>\n
According to him, similar funding arrangements have helped advance research and innovation in several countries, making Nigeria\u2019s proposed framework long overdue.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, some members of the executive are by extension sabotaging this relationship. The reason why I call it sabotage is that I see no reason whereby the executive can present a bill to the House for consideration, and that bill has national importance, but the ministry responsible for it will not show up,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Joseph Mbah,Abuja House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology has accused the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Dr. Kingsley Tochukwu Udeh of undermining President Bola Tinubu\u2019s efforts to establish a National Research and Innovation Development Fund in Nigeria. Unhappy with submission of the Minister, Lawmakers there after threatened to escalate the matter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19781,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19780\/revisions\/19781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}