For the second time in five years, the Nigerian Senate has passed the National Research and Innovation Council (NRIC) Establishment Bill. The Bill, sponsored by Senator Frank Ibezim, was passed on 21st February 2023, 13 months after the Public Hearing on the Bill took place on 17th February 2022.

The Bill was passed by the Red Chamber along with the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI) Bill 2023, after the presentation and consideration of the reports of the Senate Committee on Science and Technology.

According to National Assembly sources, the Bill will now go to the House of Representatives for concurrence before being transmitted to Mr. President for assent and it is expected that the whole process will be concluded before the end of the tenure of the President Muhammadu Buhari Administration.

When eventually the NRIC Bill receives Presidential assent and the Council becomes reality, it will be a dream come true for the advocacy for institutionalized funding mechanism for research in Nigeria. It is generally believed that what the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) is to tertiary institutes sector is what NRIC will represent to the Research and Development Institutes (RDIs) sector.

NRIC is a component of the National Policy on Science, Technology and Innovation (NPSTI), which states in Section 4: “For the Policy to achieve the desired impact, there is need to institute and evolve reliable and sustainable funding frameworks from government, private sector and development partners so as to ensure adequate funding for ST&I infrastructure and activities for sustainable development.”

The most frontal, visible and audible group in the advocacy for NRIC in Nigeria is the Academic Staff Union of Research Institutions (ASURI), which initiated the ASURI/Civil Society Coalition/Campaign for Research Funding and National Transformation.

In pressing its advocacy for NRIC, the Coalition, which consists of the union and 30 non-governmental organizations, wrote a 35-page letter to Mr. President, the Vice President, all members of the National Assembly, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), all Ministers, Ministers of State, all Federal Permanent Secretaries, as well as several eminent personalities, including former Presidents, seeking their support for the Bill.

The Presidency responded to the letter through the Office of the SGF. Through the letter, dated 30th November 2021 and addressed to Professor Theophilus Ndubuaku, the Secretary General of ASURI and the Convener of the ASURI/Civil Society Coalition, the Presidency advised the Union “to re-introduce/re-present the Bill to the 9th National Assembly, while monitoring the stages that it passes through and inform the SGF when it is finalized and awaiting Presidential Assent.”

Speaking during the Public Hearing of the Bill at the Senate on 17th February 2022, Professor Ndubuaku, who is generally known as the lone voice in the wilderness in the advocacy for research funding and NRIC, said: “The enactment of NRIC Bill will undoubtedly be among the most important legislation of the National Assembly since independence because it will change the poverty capital and current socio-economic ills bedeviling Nigeria and threatening to tear it apart.”

The NRIC Bill was first passed by the Senate during the 8th National Assembly on 31st January 2018 and transmitted to the Villa for Presidential Assent on 2nd August 2018 after the concurrence by the House of Representatives. However, citing some grey areas, the Bill was returned to NASS. The letter, through which the Bill was returned to NASS, dated 30th August 2018, was personally signed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Senate Joint Committee on Science and Technology and Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, as then headed by Senator Ajayi Borrofice and Senator David Umaru, promptly rectified the Bill and the National Assembly, after passing it, re-transmitted the Bill to the Villla on 7th June 2019. However, the Bill was returned again, this time for no specified reasons.

As the repackaged NRIC Bill makes it round in the National Assembly and prepares to go for Presidential assent the third time, key stakeholders in the RDIs sector, notably leaders of the Researchers’ Union, are of the opinion that some of the agencies listed as contributors to the Fund, with active collaboration of some technocrats, might have contributed to the Bill being returned the second time.

Inside sources within the Coalition confided in R&D Watch that a strategy has been put in place as part of the advocacy campaign to reach out to the contributing agencies and rub minds with them on the way forward. The reliable sources hinted of a grand plan by ASURI to organize a five-star round table on institutionalized funding mechanism for research which will bring together all stakeholders.

The union is however encouraged by the letter from the Office of the SGF and confident that the Bill will receive Presidential Assent this time around. In reality, the National Research and Innovation Council was actually inaugurated by former President Goodluck Jonathan on 18th February 2014 while President Buhari re-inaugurated it on 7th January 2016, chairing the inaugural meeting.

Although NRIC is yet to have an Establishment Act, the Governing Council, which has Mr. President as Chairman, the Vice President as Vice Chairman and all the 14 Ministers in charge of Ministries which supervise Research Institutes as members, has been holding meetings.

If and when the Bill is enacted and the National Research and Innovation Council/National Research and Innovation Fund (NRIC/NRIF) becomes actualized, the reliance of research solely on budgetary allocations in Nigeria will become a thing of the past.

Reacting to the passage of the Bill by the Senate, Professor Ndubuaku told R&D Watch that as encouraging as the development is, the struggle is just beginning. “It is not over until it is all over,” he said. “It is not yet time to start back-slapping and clinking glasses. The journey is still very far in terms of what needs to be done.

This is why we (ASURI) is seeking the support of Chief Executives of Research Institutions because this is not a mere welfare drive for our members but a struggle to breathe a breath of life into the near-moribund state of the sector.”

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