Hon. Clement Jimbo represents Abak/Etim/Ekpo/Ika Federal Constituency of Akwa Ibom on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and is the Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on National Planning and Economic Development. In this interview with PHILIP NYAM, he speaks on the need to embrace technology transfer and other issues
What is your motivation in sponsoring the bill for the establishment of the Commission for Technology Transfer? Why do we need technology transfer today and what’s your motivation?
The bill on technology transfer is borne out of patriotism; the love for one’s country. If you are a father and you have children, obviously, you want the best for your children in terms of where they school, what they eat, the hospital that treats them, etc. The same thing with Nigeria. If you look at the population of Nigeria, able-bodied men and women, vibrant and intelligent youth, who desire to put their productivity to test in adding value to their country, then as a father, which is the nation now, you cannot but look for ways and means to meet the yearnings and aspirations of your children. So, when I came across this gap, so to say, I asked myself, if we do not have all the resources, the technical know-how to advance, add value to our raw materials, then there is something that we have that we cannot look away from, which is a population. Can’t we transform this vibrant youth, this energised youth, this intelligent youth with so much consumable power to productivity so that we can leverage on that and bring what we do not have in exchange for what we have? That is what the bill is all about.
Let us leverage on our vibrant population, consuming population to attract what we do not have to complement with what we have. I said, for an example, the Bureau of Statistics said we have over 200 million handsets used every day in this country. And if you look at the device called handset, it has different components. One of those components is the battery. We all know the active ingredient in the production of batteries is lithium. The question is, do we have lithium in Nigeria? In abundance, in its raw form. So how can we add value to the raw material so that it can become valuable where even other countries can use it to power their handset?
I said if a country wants to shift in a billion copies of handset, we welcome the idea, but we are not just going to be a consuming nation of what you are producing in your own country. We must produce a component of that device in our country because we have the raw materials. So, we will tell them, your product will not get into Nigeria’s market, except we produce a component of what you are shifting in. You produce a billion copies of handsets; we produce a billion copies of batteries via the technology that you are deliberately and intentionally selling to us in exchange for our consumption power.
So, you shift the billion copies of handsets into Nigeria, we shift a billion copies of batteries to you. You sell your handset to us, maybe at $5, we sell our lithium to you at $1. So, there is a transfer of technology. There is an additional value to our raw material. There is unemployment created and it adds value to our gross domestic product. So, country A benefits, country B benefits. And what we are suggesting now is not in isolation with what other countries are leveraging to develop their country. Right now in China, there are certain social media services that cannot get in, except there is a complete understanding of how that technology will advance the economy of China. It’s the same thing. Recently, Donald Trump, the president-elect, threatened the BRICS country that if they are attempting to malign the power of the dollar, he will descend on them. Why is he doing that? Because he wants to protect his country while the BRICS nations want to protect theirs. So it is only in Nigeria that sometimes we sit and allow every nation to bring in whatever they have to dump on us. The time is now for us to say no. If you cannot intentionally and deliberately give us the technology to add value to what we have, then don’t bring in your product. We are ready to live like that.
This is a proposed bill and like they say, Rome was not built in a day. Is there room for us to look at it closely and put the buffers and the safe zones?
Yes, there are provisions that are embedded in the bill in terms of fines- fines of N10 million, N20 million, etc. But most importantly, like I said, this bill is borne out of patriotism. No matter how well intentioned a bill is, if the operators of the law are not patriotic, it will not see the light of the day.
Right now, in Nasarawa State, 4,000 metric tons of lithium are being mined every day; shifted in its raw form outside the shores of Nigeria, process it, then shipped the finished product to us to consume. The same thing that is happening with oil. We have the crude and it is shipped outside, refined it, and then brought back for us to consume. If Nigerians want this country to develop, I give us one year. We will fix this country by us.
Don’t you think we are having these problems because of lack of investment in technical and vocational skills because you have a lot engineers who cannot invent anything?
I agree with you completely. I am from the construction sector. I study quantity surveying, very practical stuff. And let me pause here to commend the president. Recently, I think President Tinubu added some vocational studies, plumbing, electrical, tailoring and stuff like that, to be part of our curriculum. And that is apt. So in my years of being actively participating in the construction sector, it will amaze you to know that we did not find Nigerians that can lay these tiles the way you’ve seen on this floor, effectively. You had to go to Togo, Ghana, Cameroon, etc to bring people.
You hardly find a Nigerian that can plaster the wall for it to be vertically straight. Even the POP (Plaster of Paris). These are skills that are lacking in our curriculum. So, if the president says it has to be taught, I agree with you completely. The same thing in our universities. Of what use would somebody spend four, five, six years in the university studying a course that is irrelevant in solving problems in our society? It is time for us to rejig all our educational system, curriculum, and just make it alive in line with current realities. Obviously, there are some courses in the universities that I will not send my son to go and study now. I will not. And even if the school wants to give him a scholarship, I will say, no, I don’t need the scholarship. Keep it.
But do you think this bill, if passed and signed into law, will be enforceable, considering what we have witnessed in the case of indigenous oil refineries and regulatory agencies in the sector?
Oh fantastic. If this bill is passed and assented into law, it will be enforced by the executive. What that means is that no car will be imported into this country with a battery. The car manufacturers will sell to us or give us the specification of the quality of battery they need to function in that car. Then we will produce it here.
It also means that by next year, (I’m sure iPhone 15 or 16 is already out) whether it is 17 that will come out, it will not enter this country without us producing the battery. And so many laptops that are battery operated, cameras, microphones that use batteries, all those battery specifications will be produced here. The company will send to us what they need and they will equip us with the technology, possibly come and site your factory here and produce it here, just to add value to our raw materials. Just imagine what that would do to Nigerians. The 12 million cars we currently have in Nigeria means we will be producing a minimum of 12 million batteries, maybe every quarter. I’m not even talking about cell phones. Is it solar renewable energy? So, the benefit is uncountable. And this is what we need. We just need one law to be operational and effective. It will revolutionise the entire thing.
What is the level of interaction or lobbying between you and other stakeholders over this transfer of technology?
Well, I had a meeting with the Minister of Solid Minerals, Alake. Yes, Dele Alake. I shared with him because he’s a major stakeholder, his ministry is a major stakeholder in this very bill. He agreed completely. In fact, he told me that the government is also thinking in that direction. In fact, when the President commissioned the lithium factory in Nasarawa State, he appealed to the company. He said, look, don’t just take this thing away. Come and set up here, manufacture it here. You make your money, not just for Nigeria, but for the entire West Africa. But of course, stuff like that cannot just be at the whims and caprices of who becomes a president or the minister. If there is a legal framework, it will attract companies. Who knows that if they set up their factory, produce it here, there is a law that protects them, that maybe the next president that comes in will not just open up the borders for stuff to come in. So that is the advantage of having this legal framework in place to even protect companies that want to set up their factories here, produce the materials here, and sell it to us and other nations.
There are other technological inclined agencies such as NOTAP, etc. Don’t you think they will be threatened by this bill and what becomes of them if this is passed and assented to?
The moment this bill is passed into law, it repeals automatically NOTAP Act 2004. And if you look at their core objectives, it’s just to monitor the inflow of technology into Nigeria. That’s simply monitoring. Just sit down and things are passing. You are just monitoring. Of what benefit is that to Nigeria? But this one is coming to strengthen their responsibilities by making sure, this technology, if it cannot add value to our raw materials, let it not come in. So it is not a duplication of agency. The office is already there. The staff’s already there. We are simply telling them in addition to what you’ve been monitoring, filter it. If we can produce it here, let it be produced here and don’t allow it to come into our country. Let’s protect our industry. Whoever that is there should not jitter. It is still going to be their additional responsibility. Yes we must rejig our MDAs to work and work better.
Yes, that is why consultation becomes very critical. And like I said, we are elected to make laws. And if we fail in making laws for the progress and prosperity of this nation, we have failed. I am not going to be the DG of the Commission on Technology Transfers. I’m already a lawmaker. But I’m only adding value to what they already have in order to reduce our unemployment rate, add value to our gross domestic products, and get our people off the streets. Imagine if all the batteries we consume in Nigeria are produced in Nigeria. It will make sense. International trade laws have been taken into consideration. There is no country or bilateral agreement that will stop you from developing your nation. OK, let me use this example.
Recently, I watched a Minister of Aviation on our Channels Television saying there is what is called the BASA agreement. Before now, international airlines will load their passengers from their point of departure and they will provide in-service, in-flight service. And they will freeze the one that, when they arrive in Nigeria and pick passengers, they will warm it and still share it to passengers. So when the man came, he said, no, you can only bring food from your point of departure. The moment you arrive Nigeria and you load passengers, you must stock your kitchen from Nigeria kitchen. And that is currently operational. It’s the same thing we are saying buy from us also, and besides that we have the technology, we have the food, and if you bring people from your country, maybe white people, you feed them with whatever they are conversant with. But when you pick Nigerians and you are given them what is strange to them, it is not acceptable.
So, if you bring a menu list, we see Akpu or Fufu, we know it’s made here, we understand. Afang soup, we know. Melon, Abak or Egusi soup, it relates. And let me tell you, even most of these white guys will be happy to equally taste what comes from us. So, it takes a man who is patriotic and desires the good of the nation to put this thing in place and make sure it is operational. That is one of them. So, nobody should be afraid that the law is coming to take food from their mouth. It’s rather going to add more food to your mouth.
