The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has attributed the nation’s poor economic and infrastructure development to lack of indigenous patronage of available engineering resources.
This was at an event which brought Nigerian engineers and representatives of the government together in Abuja with the objective to discuss how to apply indigenous engineering creativity for effective economic development.
According to them, government has not fully involved local engineers in projects execution, thereby creating unemployment and robbing Nigeria of huge foreign exchange.
The National President of the society, Mr Ademola Olorunfemi, told journalists that the situation has not only led to huge unemployment but has also rendered the engineering sector under-developed; a view corroborated by a former President of the NSE, Olumuyiwa Ajibola.
Mr Olorunfemi urged President Muhamadu Buhari to set policies that would improve patronage of local engineering resources for economic development.
However, the Permanent Secretary at the Federal Capital Territory Administration, John Chukwu, who was representing the Federal Government, disagreed with the engineers on their claim of lack of patronage.
In spite of his argument, many of the experts seemed to believe that major engineering projects in Nigeria are handled by the multinationals as most local engineering companies are either considered to be amateur or as lacking capacity to execute such projects.
They maintained that this has to change for Nigeria to successfully tackle its economic challenges.
