Tetfund To Fund Defence And Security Research

BY TEMI OHAKWE, ABUJA – The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) is to commence the funding of Defence and Security Research as a way of responding to the insecurity challenges and insurgency facing Nigeria.

The Fund said the move is to make Nigeria self-sufficient in locally produced technology for Nigeria’s armed forces and other security agencies.

The Executive Secretary of TETFund, Prof Suleiman Bogoro, who announced this while declaring open a 4-Day Meeting of TETFund Research and Development Standing Committee (RDSC), also said that private universities, polytechnics and colleges of education have also begin accessing its N7.5 billion National Research Fund (NRF) for research purpose.

Bogoro further said; “Since the inauguration of the TETFund RDSC on 24th of September 2020, the committee has gone far in implementing President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to support government initiatives of responding to the threat of Covid-19 through ground-breaking research on phyto-medical drugs, prophylactics and vaccines”.

The TETFund boss also announced that some of the results of the fund’s intervention would soon be unveiled, adding that there was evidence that results of the fund’s research drive were already coming in.

According to Bogoro; “The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, NASENI, and Innoson Motors, recently signed a memorandum of understanding, MoU, on the utilisation of locally produced goods, signalling a step forward”.

A 165-member standing committee was inaugurated in 2020 by the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu with the mandate of developing research that would enhance national development as well as establish a national research foundation.

Speaking on the presentation of the report of the TETFund (RDSC), the Chairman of the committee, Prof Gadzama Njida, described the report as its most important activity, adding that despite setbacks brought by the demise of their four colleagues, TETFund was able to sustain the progress of the committee’s work.