DIRECTOR GENERAL AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), Professor Hussaini Doko Ibrahim has charged Nigerians to continue to keep hope alive and maintain the right mindset, saying that the present economic challenges facing the nation will end up a huge blessing soon and for generations yet unborn.
The DG spoke to the Board of Editors of The Daily Spokesman in his office yesterday, maintaining that the challenges were not as important as a winning mindset which he prescribed for all Nigerians in the circumstance, noting that the Federal Government needed all the support now lift the nation out of the woods.
‘’Look around the world today, nationals are filing behind their leaders. In the Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation which supervises us, we are behind our ministers who have offered focused leadership.
‘’Here, at the Raw Materials Research Development Council, my staff is behind me, building synergy, combining faith, human ingenuity, experience and technology innovation to deliver and sustain developmental outcomes. And we are reaching our set goals not minding the constraints. The most important message is just deliver’’, he said.
Mission of the Board of Editors
The session with the DG RMRDC, Professor Hussaini Ibrahim, was part of media intelligence series by the Board of Editors, The Daily Spokesman’s apex organ, to sound out the views of heads of critical Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) whose operations are germane to the implementation of the 2022 Appropriation Bill (Federal Budget) which President Muhammadu Buhari presented to a Joint Session of the National Assembly on October 7, 2021 and which Senate President Ahmad Lawan recently hinted will be passed by the National Assembly before Christmas.
Concerns over the Budget’s Targets
Amid concerted efforts to improve policy environment, address insecurity in order to boost domestic investment and attract foreign direct investments, President Buhari had argued that Nigeria only had a revenue challenge and not a debt sustainability problem, maintaining that a slightly higher expenditure level was necessary to overcome current security challenges and accelerate post-recession growth.
Key takeaways of the proposed 2022 Budget
While there have been concerns about foreign exchange liquidity constraints that had been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, a key focus area in the budget is FG’s initiatives to explore avenues to diversify export revenue source away from crude oil (which currently accounts for more than 80 % of total foreign exchange receipt)
Our findings
Recent checks by this newspaper showed that the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), particularly within the period of Prof. Ibrahim’s tenure so far, indicated that innovative, practical and pragmatic initiatives had significantly boosted the Council’s fortunes vis-à-vis its statutory mandate anchored on its mission which is primarily to promote the development and optimal utilization of Nigeria’s natural resources towards boosting the competitiveness in raw materials and products development for Nigeria’s industrial growth.
Prof. Hussaini Ibrahim, a man of short words, speaks
‘’Since we came in, we have continued to do our best that in the circumstance, in terms of developing raw materials for the industries and increasing their capacity utilization, and of course, trying to actualize Mr. President’s charge that as Nigerians, we should consume what we produce, and also produce what we consume.
“A king’s order cannot fall without somebody taking swift action. This is exactly what we are doing here at RMRDC. I believe we have actually moved quite progressively irrespective of the challenging macro-economic environment.
“That is why some huge impact is being felt but you can also see that whatever is happening now can also be a blessing in disguise because it challenges us to do more and to ensure that we get within our country all that we need for our industries to thrive and all our products and services to be competitive in the market and on the global scene’’, he said.
RMRDC’s Mandate and Milestones at a glance
‘’God has blessed Nigeria with a lot of resources-agro raw materials, mineral raw materials, etc. To me, the wisdom that brought about the establishment of the Council. is a wonderful thing that has happened to this country because it’s in the process of us looking inwards, most of the things we import, you can see that even our industrial revolution thing that we started was trying to get the raw materials, we import from outside and then run the machines and what have you.
‘’So, when foreign exchange, just as we are still experiencing today, became a hard to procure, production became difficult hence some of these factories had to close shop and things became very difficult. It was about that time that RMRDC was established.
“We see it as an opportunity and we are getting there in the sense that for what we’ve been able to create, the cooperation between us and the private sector particularly the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), the small scale enterprises under the National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), etc, it has been wonderful and fulfilling.
“More of the local raw materials are now being utilized in the local industry. But then of course, the gap is still wide but we are trying to see what we can do to ensure that we all come on board together and ensure that we reduce significantly the importation of these raw materials into the country’’, he said.
On RMRDC’s Giant Strides, the Jury is Out
RMRDC under Prof. Hussaini Doko Ibrahim’s second-term tenure, in the opinion of a cross-section of stakeholders, is a litany of giant strides that has been aptly described as impactful and phenomenal.
For example, a Diaspora scholar based in Canada, Dr. Marcel Okubotin told this newspaper that the some business interests in that country has opened fruitful talks with the RMRDC’s leadership to explore the possibility of partnership on some of Council’s research findings such as the exportable popular Kilishi brand, a spiced ready-to-eat dried form of suya made from deboned cow, sheep or goat meat produced under hygienic condition.
“I am aware that exported Kilishi can be a huge port of Nigeria’s exports that can fetch foreign exchange for the Nigerian economy. What makes it particularly viable and attractive is how RMRDC has produced the technology that can produce the brand in huge commercial quantity without compromising health standards. It is a win-win for Nigeria”.
A leading Nigerian newspaper, The Nigerian Tribune which was established in 1949 wrote an editorial on June 23, 2021 titled: RMRDC And The Kilishi Breakthrough, following Professor Hussaini Ibrahim’s recent budget defence appearance before the Senate Committee on Science and Technology.
The newspaper wrote: ‘’PROFESSOR Hussaini Ibrahim, the Director General of the Raw Material Research and Development Council (RMRDC), caused more than a stir recently when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Science and Technology.
Asked to elaborate on the core achievements of the council, he told the committee that the council’s production of a machine to produce the special roast meat delicacy called kilishi in large quantities was its major breakthrough. His response, quite understandably, drew some guffaws from members of the committee.
For a 33-year-old research council, a kilishi machine wasn’t exactly what the Senate committee expected as a landmark achievement. If the Senate committee was disappointed, so were many Nigerians.
However, the Director General was obviously proud of the council’s accomplishment despite its lack of a laboratory. To be sure, the limitations of the council only mirror the Nigerian experience. The council’s mandate includes research into and development of raw materials very much like what is being done in Silicon Valley and Stanford University.
“Nevertheless, the council still has modest achievements in its areas of endeavour. It has developed a number of raw materials, only that these items are not yet being produced in commercial quantities. As Professor Ibrahim observed, ‘We have developed two varieties of sorghum. We collaborated with agricultural research institutes and pharmaceutical industries because we produce ethanol from it and that is the basic raw material for the production of sanitizers. Also from sorghum, we developed other products like glucose syrup, livestock feeds, materials for breweries, and starch”.
