Mohammed Abdullahi, a lawyer, is the Minister of State for Science and Technology. In this interview, he explains how his ministry partners relevant organisations both local and international to develop, promote and protect Nigerian researchers’ intellectual property. Legal Editor, JOHN AUSTIN UNACHUKWU met him.
The National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) has a NOTAP Research Industry and academia collaboration. What is the essence of this collaboration and how can more Nigerians key into that programme to develop the country?
The essence of this is to bring researchers from the research institutions, universities, the government and of course the industry together. The essence is to look at research findings that are bankable and to commercialise them for the benefit of Nigerians.
Another essence of that process is to ensure that the product of our research finding leads to a bye product, leads to a manufacturing exercise, leads to a employment. So, it is a whole lot of process that generates economic activity, that uplifts our living standards, that employs and also empowers the researcher.
It is something that has been going on, but like I told you earlier, it has been unsung, so unknown until when we came on board and we had to encourage them to ensure that there is synergy between this cycle of players in the arid industry so that it can generate maximum benefit for the people, generate employment, generate economic activity and generate wealth.
So, what NOTAP is doing essentially is to key into that to industrialise our country so that we can maximise the benefits of our own research findings from our people.
NOTAP has gone to places and it is doing well, you would notice from the presentation they have registered about 51 of such findings and patented them, that is a step towards commercialisation which we hope in the long run will be of general benefit to the country.
How has your background as a lawyer assisted you in the performance of your duties as a Minister in this Science and Technology Ministry and how?
My background as a lawyer has helped me a lot because of the versatile nature of law, it is expected of a lawyer that he should be a master of all subjects in the world and that is why when you see lawyers make presentations in court, when they cross examine witnesses in court in disciplines outside the legal profession like medicine, accountancy, and so on, you will think that the lawyer is a medical doctor or accountant himself.
So I think that the legal profession allows you to be flexible, to be open minded in terms of your understanding and appreciation of facts, figures and whatever you do in law is about evidence. Evidence law teaches you how to examine things not only on probative value but on the essence and motive of such actions.
And science is really about evidence, the proof of scientific assumptions through research and empirical data. Research is about experiment and proof of a given scientific ideas and their creativity, so I find the legal profession resonating with science and technology and I find it very useful in the application of my duties here.
How can we use our laws to enhance technological development of the country?
The good thing I keep telling our scientists even in the ministry here is that there is no better enabler of technology than law itself. Because without law in certain cases or areas, you cannot expound your findings. You know that there are times when scientists are killed, it is the institution of that gives them protection, they can prosper and espound their findings.
Law is a necessary enabler, a necessary framework for the advancement of science and technology to prosper in Nigeria, so we will use the instrumentality of the law to get the NASS to legislate in a way the will ensure the freedom of information, freedom of scientists to do conduct their research and ensure that the outcome of these are elaborately brought to use by the country and, consequently, we have taken a number of steps in that respect.
For instance in NOTAP , we have taken a move to ensure that the enabling Act establishing Act is amended to give it more leverage to promote the intellectual property of a Nigerian and ensure compliance with franchise laws and then to also ensure that there is enough power for monitoring because, as it were, they don’t have enough power to monitor and they also don’t have enforcement powers.
So, we need the law to give them enforcement powers so that where a company is erring in terms of its commitment to the country, NOTAP can take them to court and enforce their agreements that were incidental to their getting the franchise. Approvals in Nigeria so essentially we need the law give the basic status to operate within the framework of their mandate.
NOTAP says it intends to help Nigerian researchers to protect their intellectual property. As a lawyer, how do you think we can improve on this to enable us enjoy maximum benefit of our intellectual property?
The first thing is to ensure that whoever develops an intellectual material should take the steps to approach the appropriate authorities to ensure that such material is registered through the trade mark office in the ministry of commerce and then ensure that that franchise is also given the appropriate legal protection.
The mistake we make is that we are too eager to announce our research findings to the public and once research findings are already in public domain, it is always difficult to protect them.
I think that the first thing to do is to ensure that those findings are restricted to the process of protection so that we maximise the benefits of such intellectual property once it is registered so that you get the benefit maximally, otherwise you end up creating a property that is laced with so much intellectual flavor but end up not getting the value for it because of our attitude of impatience.
How can lawyers assist in this process?
I think that lawyers will also be engaged to focus towards protecting our intellectual property, it is very important. You noticed that NOTAP is also collaborating with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to protect the Intellectual property of Nigerian researchers even when such creativity is already in the public domain, they can collaborate with the international arm to ensure that minimal damage is done to such creative works so that their creators can get benefits from the contents they created.
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Essentially we encourage NOTAP to do that, to provide useful services to Nigerians within their ambit of their laws
What has your experiences been like as Minister of Science and Technology?
It has been a very worthwhile experience, it has broadened my perspectives about science, technology and innovations generally. I have come to interact with a lot of very profound Nigerian scientists who are great achievers in their own rights.
Who have have made tremendous contributions to the development of sciences and technology in the country, but remain unsung, people who are uncelebrated, who are unrecognised. These are some of the things that I have come to recognise, that is what the ministry has been doing.
How do you think we can resolve insecurity, whether through legal frameworks, robots, through science and technology any other means?
My views in this matter are personal and does not represent that of the Ministry. My personal view is that we must go back to the basics, we must address poverty, we must address the challenge of unemployment, of deficit in infrastructure, if we are able to address these and provide enabling infrastructure by having a good railway, good land transportation service good air transport, good schools, good hospitals that can deliver at a very reasonable price to the common man so that the common man can have access to all these facilities at affordable prices, we would have solved 50 per cent of our problems.
That is one aspect of the challenges and then secondly we now begin to look at the general architecture for security and operations, let it be community driven, let it be an engagement of everybody so that you and I see security as our primary duty, our duty to report any security threat, our duty to report what we feel when have information or hear of people trying to commit , our duty make sure that we stop them or that we inform the appropriate quarters.
Then at that stage, the relevant security agencies can step in and then begin to do the needful.
What is your appraisal of our intelligence gathering capacity?
The most important thing is that we must improve from our intelligence gathering procedure, it is very important, if are able to have this very correct, we will be able to nip most of these challenges in the bud before they blossom into full scale crimes.
It is a whole lot of issues to be canvassed to ensure a secured nation. Be that as it may, I want to commend Mr. President that in spite of all the distractions, in spite of the obvious sabotage from the system, he has remained focused on providing security, mobilizing the security arm of government in terms of resources, and equipment and I commend him well for that.
It left for other operators to replicate this, to show some sense of commitment, let them reciprocate what the President ha s done by providing resources and equipment by performance. Let them justify the equipment with performance. So we are tasking our agencies now to perform optimally.
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