The Federal Government, yesterday, made a grant of N25 million to five Academies as a token of appreciation for their contribution to national development.
The Academies are the Nigerian Academy of Science, the Nigerian Academy of Engineering, the Nigerian Academy of Letters, the Nigerian Academy of Education and the Nigerian Academy of Social Science. Each academy received N5 million.
Speaking while disbursing the grants to the beneficiaries, the Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, urged the Academies to work in synergy and apply their knowledge to solve the numerous challenges facing the nation.
The minister identified challenges like corruption, Insecurity and economy, adding that it can only be surmounted with the application of knowledge-driven technology.
He described the Academies as reservoirs of knowledge, which could be of great benefit to the nation in her bid to achieve greatness.
Dr. Onu said for Nigeria to overcome its challenges, knowledge and hard work of people must be appreciated to encourage them to do more, and by this, Nigeria will eventually join the comity of developed nations whose contribution to Science, Technology and Innovation would be respected globally.
Onu assured the Academies that as the Ministry’s funding improves, more capital would be injected to fund their research activities, adding they should make judicious use of the grant in the best interest of the nation.
Earlier, speaking on behalf of the recipients, the President of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering, Fola Lasisi, expressed his profound appreciation to the Ministry for blazing the trail in the search for knowledge- driven technology development in the country and promised on behalf of the other academies to put to good and judicious use the grants awarded to them.