The President of the Nigeria Academy of Science, Professor Oyewole Tomori, has expressed his displeasure over the non-allocation of funds for research institutions in the 2016 budget.
Speaking at a meeting with the Minister of Science and Technology in Abuja, Professor Tomori said that funding for research remains key to harnessing the nation’s abundant resource.
“I have studied the budgets of previous governments for the last three or four years, you won’t find even a research institute – fund for research.
“You look through and you find under code 2002, millions of Naira budgeted under this code 220210 for miscellaneous,” he said.
He also asked for a better way of coordinating the different research funds available and scattered in different agencies.
On his part, the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, promised that the federal government would work towards reversing the situation in the interest of national development.
The Nigerian Academy of Science is the official science academy of Nigeria. The academy was established in 1977 as an association of Nigeria’s foremost scientists.
