exploring advancements in science and technology for national security

Okebukola Keynote Address SAN 49th Conference Page | 1

Exploring Advancement in Science and Technology for National Security

Peter A. Okebukola, FSAN, OFR

Keynote Address presented at the 49th Annual Conference of the Science Association of Nigeria,

University of Ilorin, April 27-May 1, 2014

Introduction This keynote address sets out to do three things. First we will discuss the concept of national security examining its theoretical framework and situate some of the definitions within the Nigerian context. Next we will catalogue some advances in science and technology that are being or can be deployed to enhance national security. Third, we will discuss the role that the Science Association of Nigeria can play in drawing on recent advances in science and technology to support the Nigerian effort in tackling threats to national security. I will take the liberty of expanding the scope of our discussion by beginning with the broader concept of human security. At the Centre for Human Security of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library where I serve as Director, we define human security as “freedom from want and freedom from fear with regard to a range of evolving threats including illiteracy, poverty, food insecurity, international terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal arms dealing, institutional corruption, organised crime, disease and environmental degradation”. We have identified the following thematic areas in our human security programmes:

Food Security: including availability and access to food; economics, politics and sociology of food security; vulnerability to food insecurity due to climate change and mitigating causative factors.

Poverty Vulnerability: including exposure of the poor to social, economic, political and cultural marginalisation.

Conflict Prevention, Mediation, Management and Peacebuilding: including conflict analysis, peace operations, mediating regional, sub-regional and national conflicts, peace building, transition and democratisation, and trafficking in humans.

Health and Healthcare Security: including availability, affordability and access to quality healthcare delivery especially for rural poor; combating HIV and AIDS.

Education and Employment Security: including access to quality basic and functional education; entrepreneurial education and employment security; achieving global goals such as Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Climate Change and Environmental Security: including promotion of environmental awareness regarding climate change and promoting sustainable development practices within the African cultural context.

Cultural Security in a Globalising World: including promotion of the African cultural heritage and fostering cultural co-existence with peoples from other regions in a globalising world.

Energy: including provision especially to African rural population of affordable and renewable energy such as from solar and wind.

Interestingly, the sub-themes of this conference gravitate around many of the thematic areas of our Centre. Therefore, I intend to speak briefly on those aspects of human security where our themes and the conference sub-themes converge.


The state of insecurity in our nation has been a subject of deep concern. If we are to highlight personal security to which the common person relates, there are three strands of challenges that have gained momentum in recent times. These are armed robbery, kidnapping and terrorist attacks. The last two have gained ascendancy in the last two years. Between 2010 and now, several thousands of cases of armed robbery were reported nationwide. There were hundreds of cases of kidnapping and cases of terrorist attacks. The zonal spread of kidnapping and terrorist attacks is intriguing. The south-eastern and south-southern prevalence of kidnapping is now well known. The geopolitical zones in the north are stricken by boko haram attacks. In the last one week, terror alerts have been raised along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and in some locations in the southwest. The case of kidnap of over 200 girls in Borno State and the bombing in Nyanya are stark reminders of the state of insecurity in the land. If we expand our scope outside Nigeria and note insecurity in other lands e.g. Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Kenya as well as the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 and the sinking of the ferry in South Korea, specks of doubt arise as to the positive power of advances in science and technology to assure a secure world. For me, the final word on the matter is that it is only God who can secure the person, the nation and the world. However for the purpose of this keynote address, I will, in the next six sections, examine some of the advances in science and technology relating to (a) border and internal security; (b) food security; (c) health security; (d) environmental security; (e) new materials; and (f) science education. Border and Internal Security War as a pathway to protecting national security has a long history that dates back to the dawn of civilization. Armies have come a long way since the spear, or the bow and arrow. Advances in technology have led to faster airplanes, laser-guided weapons, and unmanned, bomb-carrying vehicles. In the early days of human civilisation, security within and across borders of nations was a raging issue. In “The History of Wars”, Sunderland (2013), documented over 3500 local and regional conflicts between 200 BC and 1000 AD largely credited to the crave for more land for farming and housing as well as for natural resources. From the third century to the present day, the tempo of wars and threats to national security has not abated. Two world wars and several regional conflicts were characteristic of the 20th century. Within the last one month there has been a heightened threat to global security and several countries have had to adopt coping and survival strategies to deal with threats occurring within and outside their national boundaries. In many cases, Newton’s third law of motion- for every action, there is an equal opposite reaction, has been applied with complicated consequences. The tension in the Koreas and Ukraine provide examples. The war against terror in Nigeria and the Russian Federation; the uprisings in the Arab region, notably Egypt in the last few months are other examples. In his book “Science and Technology in War”, Astor (2014) asserts that “science, technology and warfare exist in a nexus of dependencies and possibilities. Science may be defined as organised knowledge; technology, as applied knowledge; and warfare, as organised violence. But warfare generates chaos, leading to unpredictability, uncertainty, and even irrationality. The rationality associated with science and technology rests uneasily with the chaos of war.” As long as humans have fought, they have sought advantages in speed, firepower, protection, reach, and similar qualities amenable to enhancements by rational methods of science and engineering. Some of history’s best minds––Archimedes of Syracuse, Leonardo da Vinci, J. Robert Oppenheimer––devoted much of their lives working as military engineers or scientists.” Let us examine how advances in science and technology can be part of efforts at assuring national security in the form of protecting borders against aggression and fighting the scourge of terrorism. The success of any military is inextricably linked with advances in science and technology. Last month I asked two officers of the Nigerian military if they could command an American M1A2 Abrams tank


or a nuclear-powered fourth generation submarine. Their answers were similar in the form of an analogy- it is like asking a primary 2 pupil from a remote village in Nigeria to command a launch centre of a Mars-bound rocket! They of course beat their chest on their command competence if given training in the use of the high-tech military equipment. The point to be stressed is that military power in assuring national security cannot happen if science and technology base of the military is weak. Herein lies the power of equipping the Nigerian military (the best in Africa in terms of potentials) with latest fighting machines and intelligence-gathering capability to fight the boko haram menace. World War I is often called "the chemists' war", both for the extensive use of poison gas and the importance of nitrates and advanced high explosives. Biologists contributed through matching military gear with body characteristics in different combat terrains. Physicists also contributed by developing wireless communication technologies and sound-based methods of detecting U-boats. Advances in physics helped in a lot of ways to win World War II for the allied forces. Radar -enabled detection of enemy ships and aircraft, as well as the radar-based proximity fuse. The atomic bomb which nailed the final coffin of resistance by the Japanese was a development from advances in physics. Whole new fields, such as digital computing and the Internet emerged out of military patronage. Electronic warfare which was originally coined to include the interception and decoding of enemy radio communications, has now broadened to communication technologies and cryptography methods used to counter such interception such as jamming, radio stealth, the use of, detection of and avoidance of detection by radar and sonar systems and computer hacking. Of interest to us in Nigeria and in many parts of the world including the US, India, Pakistan, Syria and Russia is asymmetric warfare. This is a military situation in which two belligerents of unequal strength interact and take advantage of their respective strengths and weaknesses and which often involves strategies and tactics outside the bounds of conventional warfare. It is often referred to as terrorism. There is also the allied concept of fourth-generation warfare which is used to describe the decentralised nature of modern warfare. The simplest definition includes any war in which one of the major participants is not a state but rather a violent ideological network. Fourth-generation wars are characterised by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians, conflicts and peace, battlefields and safety. While this term is similar to terrorism and asymmetric warfare, it is much narrower. Fourth generation warfare usually has the insurgency group or non-state side trying to implement their own government or reestablish an old government over the one currently running the territory. Increasingly, modern armed forces are endeavouring to obtain superiority over the enemy by deploying advanced technologies. Developments in imaging, remote sensing, night vision, sensors, precision-guided munitions, stealth technology and above all digital communications and computer networks are compelling us to adopt new war-fighting techniques. The 20th century saw the face of warfare changed by mechanisation, aviation and communication; the 21st century would see, with the help of evolving technologies, armed forces conducting knowledge-based warfare. Let us leave war alone for the moment as a driver of national security and move to food security. Food Security Food security is another key component of human security. Sadly, the global picture on food security shows Africa under-performing with Nigeria still far from achieving a respectable level of food and nutrition security. The Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has frequently lamented the Nigerian report card on agriculture especially the huge food imports, fertilizer distribution racket and inability to mobilise and empower farmers for improved productivity. In the last few years, there is some determination towards a turnaround. If sustained, the transformation in the agriculture sector will herald significant improvement in food security in Nigeria.


The expansive nature of recent advances in science and technology as they affect food security suggests that we focus on a select few. Selection in this case is based on those issues which depress agricultural productivity and nutrition. I will take examples from some of the recent research efforts by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan. The Institute is implementing a number of projects which present advances in agriculture. One of the projects seeks to harmonise fertilizer applications with soil-specific limitations on crop productivity thereby maximising the gains from higher crop productivity by small-scale farmers. Accessibility to cheap and rapid diagnostic tools for assessing soil fertility is also a deliverable of this project. Another project has led to the development of 25 cassava varieties that are resistant to CMD and CBSD in order to mitigate the CMD and CBSD pandemic threatening cassava production in Africa and to develop a model for an effective system for the production and maintenance of clean, virus-tested cassava planting materials. Seventeen varieties that have shown great promise in terms of their resistance to both CMD and CBSD and have been officially released in the project countries of Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. A large number of highly promising new clones are in the final stages of official release. Another project rests on the current pattern of climate change and future predictions of rise in temperature which has led to the development of maize hybrids and varieties for the future. Breeding for drought and heat stress tolerant maize germplasm for future climates has focused on utilization of DTMA elite germplasm to be screened under combined heat and drought stress to eliminate susceptible lines. This will provide the opportunity of identifying DT donors and traits with tolerance to combined heat and drought stress for developing new donors with enhanced tolerance to combined heat and drought stress. Development of hybrids from elite lines selected for both heat and drought tolerance for testing and deployment will help in identification and selection of superior genotypes with tolerance to drought and heat stress. Since maize inbred lines are more susceptible to drought and heat stresses, buffering maize seed production against elevated temperatures in Africa will help in production of good quality seed of the superior genotypes for deployment and delivery to farmers. What about recent advances in food quality and safety? Aflatoxin contamination present a serious obstacle to programmes designed to improve nutrition and agricultural production that link small farmers to markets. Aflatoxins are highly toxic, cancer-causing fungal chemicals that suppress the immune system, retard growth, and cause liver disease and death in both humans and domestic animals. Aflatoxin exposure thus provides a challenge in efforts to improve people’s health, especially women and children. An innovative biocontrol solution had been developed by USDA-ARS. This breakthrough technology reduces aflatoxins during crop development and postharvest storage, and throughout the value chain. Atoxigenic strain-based biological control is a natural, nontoxic technology that uses the ability of native atoxigenic strains of Aspergillus flavus (the fungus that produces aflatoxin) to naturally outcompete their aflatoxin-producing cousins. IITA, in partnership with USDA, has successfully adapted this technology for use in Nigeria using native micro-flora, and has developed a biocontrol product called aflasafe™. Field testing of aflasafe™ in Nigeria over the past four years has produced extremely positive results: aflatoxin contamination of maize and groundnut was consistently reduced by 80–90%, and even as high as 99%. Native atoxigenic strains have been isolated from Kenya, and are ready for further evaluation to develop into a product. This technology is particularly effective in the African context because it addresses the source of aflatoxin―the fungus in the soil―before it can contaminate the crop prior to harvest. Adapting and applying this solution to address aflatoxin contamination in Africa could dramatically improve the health and livelihoods of millions of families while reducing commodity losses due to contamination (IITA, 2014). Thousands of farmers in Nigeria are successfully battling the invasion in their farms by the deadly parasitic weed Striga or “Wuta Wuta”. As a result they are enjoying higher yields in maize and cowpea, important staple and cash crops in Nigeria. The key to managing this weed is to combine sustainable multiple-


pronged technology options being advocated by the Integrated Striga Management in Africa (ISMA) project to sustainably eliminate the weed from their fields Another major development is the sustainable control of the lethal Striga weed through the Integrated Striga Management in Africa (ISMA) project. Striga attacks and greatly reduces the production of staple foods and commercial crops such as maize, sorghum, millet, rice, sugarcane, and cowpea. The weed attaches itself to the roots of plants and removes water and nutrients and can cause losses of up to 100% in farmers’ crops. Furthermore, a single flower of the weed can produce up to 50,000 seeds that can lie dormant in the soil for up to 20 years. The weed is the number one maize and cowpea production constraint in Nigeria, infesting most farmers’ fields. Management technologies range from cultural practices such as crop rotation of maize with soybean which stimulates Striga to germinate but which later dies in the absence of the maize host to latch onto; using Striga-resistant maize varieties; and using maize varieties resistant to Imazapyr—a BASF Crop Chemical herbicide (StrigAway®) and Metsulfuron Methyl (MSM), a Dupont Chemical herbicide which is coated on the herbicide-resistant maize seeds developed by IITA and which kills the Striga seed as it germinates and before it can cause any damage; other technologies include adopting novel Striga biocontrol technologies which uses a naturally occurring host-specific fungal pathogen that kills the weed at all stages without affecting other crops; and deploying a “push-pull’ technology that involves intercropping cereals with specific Striga-suppressing desmodium forage legume. The project, being implemented in Kenya and Nigeria, aims to reach 250,000 farmers directly and improve the livelihoods of over 25 million small-holder farmers in the immediate impact zones within 10 years. In addition, the project aims to increase current maize and cowpea yields by over 50% in Striga-infested areas and reduce the area under Striga infestation by 13% (IITA, 2014). I will conclude this section on food security on a bright note by subscribing to the views of President Obasanjo as contained in the February 17, 2014 Distinguished President’s lecture given at Valparaiso University, Indiana, USA. According to him, “the bright future which I envision for agriculture and food security is contingent on a number of conditions. We will walk into the reality of that future if at least seven actions are taken or strengthened. Agriculture is better managed by the private sector hence African governments should put in place, policies and enabling environment which will encourage active participation of the private sector in food production. Secondly, research is urgently needed to investigate causes of failure of large-scale arable farming in Africa and practicable and sustainable strategies applied to tackle these causes. Here, we can learn from Brazil experience. Thirdly, public and private investments in agriculture should be significantly increased, perhaps doubled in the next ten years to enhance agricultural productivity. Fourthly, subsidies for agricultural inputs should be increased especially to private sector farmers in order to step up food production and enhance food security in the continent. Fifthly, steps should be taken to enhance mechanised farming through local iron and steel development and equipment fabrication so as to support the production of agricultural machinery. The sixth action is that policies encouraging participation of women in food production and access to agricultural resources should be promoted more effectively. Lastly and as intertwined entities, we must promote efficient marketing and value addition to agricultural production; ensure cautious importation of food needs; promote genuine and viable farmers’ cooperatives; infuse entrepreneurial skills and orientation into the curriculum of agricultural graduates; and cautiously adapt foreign modelled prescriptions juxtaposed with local realities.” Health Security There is minimal consensus on the meaning, definition and understanding of health security. To navigate around this challenge, we shall take health security in this keynote address to mean “protection from diseases and unhealthy lifestyles”. This is based on the deduction that if a person is protected from diseases and adopts a lifestyle that is healthy then health security can be largely


assured. Threats to health security are usually greater for poor people in rural areas due to malnutrition and insufficient access to health services, clean water and other basic necessities. A nation where the citizenry is healthy has broken the backbone of most socio-economic challenges. Consequently, striving for the good health of its people is the goal of far-sighted leaders. Obamacare for instance is aimed at fostering the health of the people of the most-powerful nation on earth. President Obama rests the health insurance scheme on the belief that it is a healthy people that can contribute meaningfully to development. The Nigerian National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is also premised on the same philosophy. In discussing advances in science and technology impacting health security, my scan of the literature of over 125,000 of such advances suggests that medical and applied scientists are making intense efforts to improve health security globally. I will take a peep at some of these advances especially those that relate to diseases which affect a sizeable proportion of the populace in Africa. These are malaria and three non-communicable diseases- diabetes, hypertension and cancer. Malaria remains one of the most prevalent and deadly infectious diseases across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 154–289 million malaria cases in 2010, with 660,000 associated deaths. Eighty percent of the estimated cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa and 86% of deaths occur in children less than 5 years of age. In Africa, the economic burden is estimated at $12 billion/year. Use of treated nets and malaria drugs are common strategies of attack of the disease. The drugs can target the blood stage of the disease to alleviate the symptoms, the liver stage to prevent relapses, and the transmission stage to protect other humans. The pipeline for the blood stage appears to be most served for now. Drug discovery efforts directed towards the liver and transmission stages are in their infancy but are receiving increasing attention as targeting these stages could be instrumental in eradicating malaria. Herein come the advantage of a malaria vaccine. It has been a fairly long road to the development of a malaria vaccine with success stories along the way but the final end is yet to be in sight. The over 30 years of efforts have seen a lot of twists and turns. I will give a few examples of efforts at producing a vaccine for malaria. Results from a large-scale phase III trial show that the most clinically-advanced malaria vaccine candidate, RTS,S, continued to protect young children and infants from clinical malaria up to 18 months after vaccination. On October 8th 2013, researchers from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a British pharmaceutical firm announced progress in developing a vaccine against malaria. Scientists from the Institute of Immunology and Infection Research at the University of Edinburgh have made a significant contribution towards the development of a vaccine to prevent malaria. iBio, Inc., a company involved in plant-based biotechnology for developing and manufacturing biological products, reported the initiation of a Phase 1 human safety and immunogenicity clinical study of a transmission-blocking malaria vaccine candidate. A malaria vaccine developed at Oxford University has shown promising results in the first clinical trial to test. More efficacious malaria vaccines and those that could eliminate the disease in different settings should be available by 2030, according to the 2013 Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap. When the malaria vaccine is finally available to all, death rate due to malaria in Africa is predicted to drop by 86% within the first eight years of use of the vaccine (Johnson, 2014). The Nigerian Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) is also making efforts to produce more potent anti-malaria drugs from local flora. Moving on to hypertension, there is a wide range of cutting edge research targeting the management of the disease. Although various effective treatments for hypertension are available, novel therapies to reduce elevated blood pressure, improve blood-pressure control, treat resistant hypertension, and reduce the associated cardiovascular risk factors are still required. A novel angiotensin-receptor


blocker (ARB) was approved in 2011, and additional compounds are in development or being tested in clinical trials. Several of these agents have innovative mechanisms of action (an aldosterone synthase inhibitor, a natriuretic peptide agonist, a soluble epoxide hydrolase inhibitor, and an angiotensin II type 2 receptor agonist) or dual activity (a combined ARB and neutral endopeptidase inhibitor, an ARB and endothelin receptor A blocker, and an endothelin-converting enzyme and neutral endopeptidase inhibitor). Also, several novel fixed-dose combinations of existing antihypertensive agents were approved in 2010–2011, including aliskiren double and triple combinations, and an olmesartan triple combination (see Table 1). Upcoming fixed-dose combinations are expected to introduce calcium-channel blockers other than amlodipine and diuretics other than hydrochlorothiazide (Burnier, Vuignier and Wuerzner, 2014). Finally, device-based approaches to the treatment of resistant hypertension, such as renal denervation and baroreceptor activation therapy, have shown promising results in clinical trials. However, technical improvements in the implantation procedure and devices used for baroreceptor activation therapy are required to address procedural safety concerns. Table 1 | Compounds* newly approved or in clinical trials for the treatment of hypertension

Agent Mechanism of action Status

Azilsartan medoxomil AT1R blocker with peroxisome proliferator-activated Approved in 2011 by EMA and FDA receptor γ activity

LCI 699 Aldosterone synthase inhibitor Phase II

LCZ 696 Dual AT1R blocker and neutral endopeptidase inhibitor Phase II (phase III for heart failure)

PS 433540 Dual AT1R and endothelin A receptor blocker Phase II

Daglutril Dual endothelin-converting enzyme and neutral Phase III endopeptidase inhibitor

PL 3994 Natriuretic peptide receptor agonist Phase II (also phase II for congestive heart failure)

AR 9281 Soluble epoxide hydrolase inhibitor Phase II (also phase II for diabetes mellitus type 2)

Lercandipine, modified release Calcium-channel antagonist Phase II

Clonidine, controlled release Centrally acting α2-adrenergic agonist Phase III

*Only compounds approved by the FDA in 2010–2011 or listed as clinically investigated. Source: Paulis, L, Steckelings, U and Unger, T. (2012). Key advances in antihypertensive treatment, Nature Reviews- Cardiology, 9, 276-285.

Blood pressure technology research is keeping pace with drug development. For example, in March, University of Rochester Medical Center doctors were first to implant the “Rheos”, a battery-driven generator that activates the body’s natural regulatory systems for blood pressure. The device operates in a fashion similar to a pacemaker, which regulates heart rhythm. The Rheos device stimulates nerves in the carotid arteries to send a message to the brain to reduce blood pressure. Other agents that hold promise include oral renin-inhibitors, a novel class of medications that target an enzyme released by the kidneys that can affect blood pressure. Of these new drugs, the first that is expected to be released is Aliskiren, a drug made by Novartis that is currently in phase III testing. What about cancer? Cancer continues to be one of the major causes of death throughout the developed world, which has led to increased research on effective treatments. In the past decade, rapid progress in the field of cancer treatment has been seen. Recent Advances in Cancer Research and Therapy reviews in specific details some of the most effective and promising treatments developed in research centres worldwide. While referencing advances in traditional therapies and treatments such as chemotherapy, it highlights advances in biotherapy including research using Interferon and Super Interferon, HecI based and liposome based therapy, gene therapy, and p53 based cancer therapy. There is also a discussion of current cancer research in China including traditional Chinese medicine.


Some laboratories in North America and Europe are trying out drugs to counter the scourge of diabetes, hypertension and cancer. The technology in surgery has also advanced in recent years. Consider surgery when a patient is to get his or her diseased heart, liver or spleen removed with minimal invasion through new technologies being developed by biomedical engineers in University of London and at Harvard. By 2050, the scenario that surgeons envisage is one where a patient with an organ failure walks into a hospital, gets a 3-D printed organ to replace it in a few hours. It may be twenty years or more before these drugs and surgical techniques become available for the masses. However, when they do, the health of the people will be better secured than what we have today. Environmental Security More than half of humanity’s health and social problems are dependent, either directly or indirectly, on environmental factors. We can be exposed to harmful substances through the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the soil on which we stand. Environmental security examines threats posed by environmental events and trends to individuals, communities or nations. One of the main goals of environmental security is to protect human health and critical ecosystems by detecting, minimising and ultimately eliminating harmful chemical and biological agents through early detection and applying mitigating interventions. When people, as a consequence of environmental changes, lack enough food, water, shelter, or the natural resources needed to live, they become agitated and aggressive enough to create unstable communities and nations. Changing environments augment other threat conditions and hence referred to as threat multiplier. You just have to look at the maps of growing water scarcity and shortage to realise that because we are rapidly depleting aquifers globally and because glaciers in key regions of the world, like the Himalayas, are melting at a very rapid rate, while at the same time populations are increasing, that will mean increased stresses. Environmental factors are combining with other political, economic, and social forces to affect national security (Goodman, 2012). Environmental degradation, inequitable access to natural resources and the trans-boundary movement of hazardous materials can lead to conflict and pose a risk to national security and human health. Trans-boundary pollution, for instance, can disrupt relations between neighbouring states, which share a common resource base. Health risks and involuntary migration due to water scarcity, inequitable access to land resources, uncontrolled stocks of obsolete pesticides or other forms of hazardous waste have also been identified as threats to stability and peace. However, common problems linked to the use of natural resources can also bring people to work together towards a common goal. Thus, environmental co-operation can act as a powerful tool for preventing conflicts and promoting peace between communities and societies. The most recent, globally-endorsed document on climate change is the 2013 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)- The Physical Sciences Basis. The challenge the world faces without action is spelled out across the report, written by 235 scientists from 39 countries, with input from 180 contributors and more than 800 experts who reviewed the reports. The report indicates that each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983–2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years. The globally-averaged combined land and ocean surface temperature data as calculated by a linear trend, show a warming of 0.85 [0.65 to 1.06] °C, over the period 1880 to 2012, when multiple independently produced datasets exist. The total increase between the average of the 1850–1900 period and the 2003–2012 period is 0.78 [0.72 to 0.85] °C, based on the single longest dataset available. The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia (high confidence). Over the period 1901 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] m. The report further confirms that the atmospheric


concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use change emissions. The ocean has absorbed about 30% of the emitted anthropogenic carbon dioxide, causing ocean acidification. Human influence on the climate system is clear (IPCC, 2013). This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system. Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is raising the risks to food security, livelihoods, and human health, not only through the increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves and extreme precipitation events but also as a result of increases in vector-borne diseases whose carriers thrive under warmer conditions. The reports describe three decades of successively warmer global temperatures, sea levels that have risen on average 19 cm since 1900, and rising CO2 emissions. The world has two basic tracks for keeping greenhouse gas emissions from rising dangerously high: take steady action now to taper off emissions, or allow emissions to increase over the next 10 to 20 years and then bring them down sharply. “If you allow emissions to increase, the impact of climate change will become progressively more serious, and the technologies that you would have to put in place to reduce emissions very sharply would be that much more expensive,” IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri said as he gave the Robert Goodland Memorial Lecture, in honour of the World Bank’s first ecologist some few weeks ago. According to him, that will require a range of technologies that by 2100 can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, including carbon capture and storage, a developing technology that buries carbon dioxide but carries risks. The rate of improvement in energy efficiency would need to increase much more rapidly, and the share of low-carbon energy from renewable sources would have to triple or quadruple by 2050. There would be opportunities for nuclear power and for bioenergy or fossil energy, but only with carbon capture and storage. In Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Environment has been taken some steps to address issues relating to environmental security. Among other functions, the Ministry prescribes standards for and make regulations on water quality, effluent limitations, air quality, atmospheric protection, ozone protection, noise control as well as the removal and control of hazardous substances, and monitors and enforces environmental protection measures. The Greenwall project of the Ministry involves the establishment of green wall or shelterbelt from Kebbi State to Borno State; community sensitisation and mobilisation; promotion of alternative sources of energy; promotion of alternative means of livelihoods; promotion of dryland agricultural technology; and provision of water and other social infrastructure. State Environmental Protection Agencies are also active in the pursuit of the environmental security agenda. National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), a parastatal of the Federal Ministry of Environment established in 2007 has also been active in ensuring environmental security. NESREA takes responsibility for the protection and development of the environment, biodiversity conservation and sustainable development of Nigeria's natural resources in general and environmental technology including coordination, and liaison with, relevant stakeholders within and outside Nigeria on matters of enforcement of environmental standards, regulations, rules, laws,


policies and guidelines. The NESREA Act empowers the Agency to be responsible for enforcing all environmental laws, guidelines, policies, standards and regulations in Nigeria, as well as enforcing compliance with provisions of international agreements, protocols, conventions and treaties on the environment to which Nigeria is a signatory. Advances in science and technology Summarising recent advances in science and technology in a few pages is a greasy pole to climb; you can hardly get to the top of it. The vastness of the areas of science and technology to be covered and the depth to which you can go are some of the inhibitors of getting a good job done. What I have settled for is to focus on seven top advances made between 2012 and April 20, 2014. My selection of the seven is rather random but ensuring that I draw direct or indirect relevance of the discovery to national security, taken in its broadest sense.

1. Higgs boson: On July 4, 2012, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider announced the end of a 5-decade-long search for the Higgs boson or Higgs particle. This long-sought particle is responsible for giving all other subatomic elements, such as protons and electrons, their mass, and was the final piece in the Standard Model, which describes the interactions of all known particles and forces. The finding was widely hailed as the most important fundamental physics discovery in more than a generation. The discovery of a Higgs boson should allow physicists to finally validate the last untested area of the Standard Model's approach to fundamental particles and forces, guide other theories and discoveries in particle physics, and potentially lead to developments in "new" physics. If this field did exist, this would be a monumental discovery for science and human knowledge, and is expected to open doorways to new knowledge in many fields. A common pattern for fundamental discoveries is for practical applications to follow later, once the discovery has been explored further, at which point they become the basis for social change and new technologies.

2. Xeno Nucleic Acid (XNA)-Life's New Chemical Code: For the last three billion years, life on

Earth has relied on two information-storing molecules, DNA and RNA. Now there's a third: XNA (Xeno Nucleic Acid), a polymer synthesized by molecular biologists of the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom. Just like DNA, XNA is capable of storing genetic information and then evolving through natural selection. Unlike DNA, it can be carefully manipulated. For now, researchers hope it might be used for medical or industrial purposes. It will also be a useful tool for researchers studying the origins of life. And while both XNA and human understanding are still too rudimentary to synthesize a life form fundamentally unlike any yet known, it can now be imagined. Research is now being done to create synthetic polymerases to transform XNA. The study of its production and application has created a field known as xenobiology.

3. Genome Editing: Genome editing, or genome editing with engineered nucleases is a type of

genetic engineering in which DNA is inserted, replaced, or removed from a genome using artificially engineered nucleases, or "molecular scissors." In January 2013, two research teams announced a fast and precise new method for editing snippets of the genetic code. The so-called CRISPR system takes advantage of a defense strategy used by bacteria. The bacteria use RNA to identify foreign DNA and enzymes to chop it up. The scientists repurposed this system so that the RNA seeks out a specific sequence of DNA -- a disease-causing gene mutation, for example -- and the enzymes edit the genetic code to fix the mutation. The strategy has already spawned startup companies and impressive venture capital investment including gene therapy.


4. Major Expansion in 3-D Printing: 3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model. 3D printing is achieved using an additive process, where successive layers of material are laid down in different shapes. A 3D printer is a limited type of industrial robot that is capable of carrying out an additive process under computer control. In 2013, American scientists use 3D printing to manufacture a new class of microscopic batteries, which may allow the easy production of extremely small medical devices, nanorobots and communications system.

5. Organs from Stem Cells: In 2013, scientists announced several major steps towards

engineering functioning organs from stem cells. By providing just the right chemical environment, European scientists coaxed the stem cells to become neurons and arrange themselves into different structures that crudely resemble the anatomy of a developing fetal brain. The researchers are using these methods to study what goes wrong in developmental brain disorders like microcephaly, using stem cells from individual patients. Researchers in Japan developed functional human liver tissue from reprogrammed skin cells and several teams reported progress on developing kidney tissue. The road to creating transplantable tissues from stem cells is still long, but these are encouraging steps. Also, British researchers in 2013 grew viable ears, teeth, livers and blood vessels from stem cells, allowing future patients to receive living organs to replace diseased or damaged ones

6. Autonomous or Driverless Car: Transportation technology saw huge advances between 2012

and 2014 in the development of autonomous cars. An autonomous car, self-driving car or robot car, is capable of fulfilling the human transportation capabilities of a traditional car. It is capable of sensing its environment and navigating without human input. According to Andrew English in the Telegraph of 16 January, 2014, the first driverless vehicle - the Induct Technology Navia - is now on sale, and test vehicles from Google, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and many others have driven themselves on public roads (under strict supervision). BMW has displayed a car that can "drift" through corners without a driver, while Volvo has announced plans for the world’s first large-scale test of driverless cars and governments are framing permit legislation to allow the further research of such vehicles on the highways, so it's clear that most of the hardware to make a self-driving car is in place, expensive and is indeed on its way into your car sometime in the next decade.

7. Alternative Fuel Microbes: In 2012, scientists have been able to come up with electrofuels

that are designed to harness solar energy without cutting into the food, water, or land supplies as most of the existing alternative fuels do. Electrofuel microbes have been isolated and found living in non-photosynthetic bacteria. Using the electrons in the soil as food, the microbes eat up the energy to produce butanol when exposed to electricity and carbon dioxide. Using this knowledge, scientists extract the genes to complete this photosynthesis substitute and inject them into lab-grown bacteria allowing them to produce butanol in large amounts. Butanol is now being seen as the better alternative to both ethanol and petrol for a variety of reasons. As a much larger molecule, butanol has a larger energy-carrying capacity than ethanol and does not absorb water, so it can be placed directly in the gas tanks of any car and transported through the existing gasoline pipelines. These butanol microbes are very promising for the future of alternative fuels.

Science Education and National Security Science education and national security is the first sub-theme of the 49th Annual Conference. If the ordering is by design, it is aptly so on account of the importance of good quality science education in advancing the frontiers of science and technology. With weak delivery at the basic and higher


education levels, the capacity to contribute meaningfully to national development through advances in science and technology will be severely compromised. I should not invest too much time in describing the parlous state of science education in Nigeria since we all have familiarity with the depressed state (see for example Okebukola, 2012; Okebukola, Owolabi and Okebukola, 2013). What I believe we should discuss are some strategies for improving the current state of affairs. I present a 25-point plan for getting it right. I will cluster the plan around seven themes- curriculum, parents, media, teachers and curriculum delivery, policy, research and government. In my narration in this section, I will benchmark with practices in six countries where performance in science and technology is globally acclaimed to be among the best. These are Germany, Israel, Japan, USA, Finland, South Korea and China. Curriculum 1. The basic science curriculum is well intentioned but is spawned too much around traditional

science concepts rather on process skills. Process skills enable learners gain practical understanding of how a scientist works. Observing, experimenting, manipulating variables and predicting are some of the sixteen major science process skills. The development of these skills are encouraged by the science curriculum but on account of the content load of topics to be covered and the examination slant of the school system, emphasis on them is weak. Having the shoe on the right foot will mean increasing the proportion of allotment to process skills development in the curriculum relative to the load of content in the ‘theoretical’ topics.

2. A great deal of emphasis should also be on projects and exploration and since doing well in public

examinations is the goal of students and their teachers, such examinations should test knowledge and skills that students would have acquired as a result of personal encounter with science projects. At the university level, emphasis should shift significantly to hands-on practical work and projects.

Parents 3. Opportunity to learn science at home is a major variable in students’ performance. Several studies

(see Okebukola, 2013 for a review) have converged to indicate that 12-14% of the variance on scores on performance in science can be attributed to the opportunity given the child at home to continue learning science outside school. The time between 4 pm when a day student arrives home and 8 a.m. the following day when he or she is back at school should not be “blown” on play and academically non-productive engagements, aside of course from sleeping time. It should not be spent in total, watching European league matches, hanging out with friends, chatting on social media and attending parties. At home, parents should provide opportunities for their children and wards to revise their science lessons and encourage them to carry out projects that are science and technology related. Children should be encouraged to spend some time with neighbouring technical workmen in radio, TV, GSM and computer repair workshops and visit nearby industries.

4. Parents who have DSTV or other paid channels should limit the time spent by their children

watching cartoon network or channels which have little educational value. Rather, the interest of children should be steered to channels that can kindle and sustain their interest in science such as Discovery, Animal Planet and Learn.

5. Parents should buy children science books and reward children who devote time and attention to

reading such books.


Media 6. The Nigerian media are ever too eager to report sports and devote a sizeable portion of newspaper

and broadcast time to such reporting. Sports are of course important, so is science and technology. Public and private media need to pay greater attention to promoting science and technology literacy.

7. Since the youth love music, presenters should intersperse musical shows with interesting stories

on science and technology rather than on gossips of low value to the development of the child. Teachers and Curriculum delivery 8. Teachers should be trained and facilitated to make a 180-degree switch from chalkboard science

to hands-on science. The typical science classroom in Nigeria should move from being a rhetoric of conclusions to one of investigation, problem solving and experimentation. In-service training can deliver this goal alongside providing teachers with the necessary tools to teach science effectively.

9. Science teachers should adopt methodologies which our on-going research in Lagos State

University and previous studies have shown to be potent in bolstering interest in and achievement of students in science. When science teachers use humour in class, interest of science is known to be awakened in students. Using clean and science-related jokes when a science lesson is progressing has been proven to improve performance of students in difficult topics in science. The use of analogies, drama and metaphors have also been consistently shown to boost performance of students in science and technology. Teachers can gain familiarity with these methods and attain fluency in their use through in-service training. Annual workshops in various teaching subjects in science, technology and mathematics by the Science Teachers Association of Nigeria provide avenues for such training.

10. Charts on different science topics displayed on the walls of classrooms and laboratories are known

to catch the attention of students, register information on science in their memories and enhance retention. Teachers should mount charts especially on difficult topics on the wall and periodically change these charts to vary the topics.

11. A science teacher may not have strength in some topics which other teachers in the vicinity have.

Teachers should therefore have guest teachers teach subjects they have relatively lower familiarity with. In turn, they should offer similar service to schools whose teachers have served as guest lecturers in theirs.

12. Teachers should tailor science instruction to contemporary taste of learners. We are now teaching

science to “millennials” who are turned on by music and videos. The appetite of students of today is more for music, technology, videos and use of social media. Students are keen on using apps on their mobile phones, playing music and watching movies on their hand-held devices. Teachers should ride on the back of such interests to deliver the science curriculum.

13. Use of technology to deliver instruction in science should be accorded greater focus by teachers.

Use of virtual laboratories and libraries, e-learning based on content locally developed by Nigerian teachers are potent in improving students’ performance in science. Partnerships should be explored with local ICT companies in Nigeria to equip schools and build capacity of teachers in the use of ICT for science instruction.


Policy 14. The National Policy on Education and the National Policy on Science Education (a component of

the National Science and Technology Policy), should give effect to the resolution of the 2012 National Summit on Higher Education calling for the restoration of the Higher School Certificate (HSC). HSC is a pathway for preparing science students better for university education. HSC classes are known for their rigour and will help to remedy the deficiencies in science that senior school certificate students now bring to the 100-level of degree programmes in universities.

15. Consideration should be given to the restoration/establishment of special science schools in all

states and the FCT, if not already in place. The logic behind Special Science Schools is that rather than spread the scarce resources- quality science teachers, equipment and other facilities, thin across all the schools in a state where many of the students are hardly keen about science, concentrating these resources in selected schools will have greater impact. The arrangement does not preclude other schools from teaching subjects like biology but for those students who are in the science stream, aggregating them in specialised schools will ensure better utilisation of resources. This model worked exceedingly well in Kano State and it is the “magic formula” that led the State to have one of the richest human-resource base in science in Nigeria especially in the north.

16. A modification of the policy on graduate science teacher education is also needed. The degree

programme in science education should be of 5-year duration where students spend four years learning content in science to the full and the fifth year spent on education courses. This is equivalent to the B.Sc plus the PDGE. This arrangement has the benefit of producing teachers with better content knowledge who will have confidence to teach any topic in the senior school certificate science curriculum. An alternate model is to spend four years but have 90% of the time taking courses in science and 10% in education. The products from the 5-year degree arrangement should be placed on salary grade level which is one level beyond graduates from the 4-year programme.

17. All science teachers should be re-certified every five years. Re-certification comes with assessing

up-to-dateness in contemporary knowledge and skills in science. Teachers who fail re-certification examinations to be conducted by relevant Ministries of Education should be disengaged from active duty.

Research 18. Greater attention should be given to strengthening the infrastructure and human capacity in

Nigerian universities to conduct research to ensure we reap better dividends of the power of science and technology for development.

19. Researchers in science and technology education need to be strengthened through training in

modern methods so as to unravel and propose more creative solutions to challenges facing the teaching and learning of science and technology at all levels of the Nigerian education system. Establishment of national centres of excellence in such research enterprise is canvassed.

20. Annual fairs to showcase outcomes and outputs of research and development into science and

technology including education should be a regular feature of the Nigerian education system and modelled after the Nigerian Universities Research and Development Fair and similar fair organised by the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology. The fairs should be scoped beyond the universities and research institutes to include primary and secondary schools. For ease of


implementation, there should be state-level exhibitions and fairs, moving up to geo-political zonal level fairs and then the national.

Government 21. Greater attention should be paid to the establishment and enforcement of minimum standards

for science and technology education some of which could be unique to the Nigerian setting, yet contextually relevant. Minimum standards at the basic education level for quantity and quality of equipment, teacher/pupil ratio for science classes; contact time for projects, laboratory work and field trips; science assignments to be submitted by learners per week; number of science-related story books to be read per term by students and teachers; and number of science projects to be undertaken and completed by the teacher per term are some of these standards. Enforcement being an area where the system normally falters should be addressed with a greater degree of vigour. The Edu Marshall example of Delta State is worth emulating. In this case, it will not be for arresting school absentees, it will be a scheme that will enforce minimum academic standards, in this case for science, in all schools in the state.

22. There should be a major rethinking of our science teacher education programmes. First,

admission should be limited to only those who willingly elect to study science education. All attempts to smuggle in the unwilling horses who are rejects from other Faculties, should be resisted

23. The welfare scheme of teachers generally and science teachers in particular should be

significantly improved to motivate and foster commitment.

24. There is the need to decongest the overloaded science syllabuses at the Senior School Certificate level. Emphasis should be on quality of content not quantity.

25. A five-year plan for refurbishing the laboratories of our basic, post-basic and higher

education schools should be developed and implemented beginning from 2015. Some Suggestions for SAN President, distinguished members of SAN, will SAN continue to congregate every year to listen to papers by members and other scientists; publish the proceedings which will pick up 5mm thick of dust in the coming months and in the Journal of SAN; get promoted and watch out for the next conference announcement? Do we have a report of the impact of the activities of SAN on the development of science and technology in Nigeria, Africa and the rest of the world? What should SAN begin to do differently to stamp its feet on the landscape of such developments and provide us an outlook for solving many of Nigeria’s socio-economic challenges through the power of science and technology? Can we anticipate that in the next decade or two, a member of SAN will win Nigeria’s first Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry? Permit me to close the address with some thoughts on these issues. I propose that SAN considers the following areas for possible adoption. These are: Communiqué of the 49th Conference to Mr. President The conclusions and recommendation of the 49th Conference should have a major section extolling the transformation agenda of Mr. President and the role that SAN can play in its actualisation through advances in science and technology. The communique should be sent to Mr. President by courier and to all members of the Federal Executive Council and leadership of the National Assembly. The Science


and Technology Committee of Senate and the House of Representatives should also be served. I suggest that all transmissions should be done within two weeks of the close of the conference. This effort will bring our political leaders to increased realisation of the relevance of SAN to implementing national development agenda and especially to the critical issues of advancements in science and technology for national security that will be discussed at this conference. Even if only a few of the personalities to which the communique was sent acknowledge receipt, the SAN message would have been conveyed. SAN Position Papers to Government SAN should periodically develop position papers on topical issues affecting national development with bearing on science and technology. These position papers should be forwarded to government and made available to the general public. This will show that SAN is a key stakeholder in national development and will be significantly elevate the profile of the Association. SAN Consultancy If not already in place, SAN should establish a Consultancy Unit that will serve the dual purpose of making the collective expertise of the Association available for national development and for increasing revenue base. SAN Consult will bid for consultancies and contracts relating to science-related projects in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world. If it is not able to win such consultancies solo, it can partner others as a consortium and through such mega units, achieve better leverage for implementing big contracts relating to science and technology enterprise in the public and private sector. 50th SAN Conference SAN’s 50th Annual Conference of 2015 should be with a difference. I am sure the President and Executive Committee are planning it big. You should invite one or two Nobel-Prize winning scientists to the event. I recall that the 99th Indian Science Congress to which I was invited to make a lead presentation had 18 Nobel-Prize winners in science attend. Inviting such prize winners is an expensive venture but I am sure you can get corporate sponsors if you start early. On the March to Nobel Prize in Science SAN members are gifted scientists whose contributions to science can be enriched to win Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry. I offer a few suggestions on how you can be in the race for winning the Nobel Prize. Tutelage under Nobel-prize winners: Members of SAN especially the early-career researchers should strive for training under the wings of Nobel-prize winners to foster cultivation of research methodologies, attitudes and values needed by prize-winning scientists. SAN should undertake a study of institutional location of Nobel Prize winners and seek partnership with such institutions and centres where the laureates are serving. SAN should confer with NUC on the PRESSID programme where bright graduates, especially first class degree holders in science and technology can be carefully selected to undertake postgraduate education in such centres. We should begin to fade out the vogue of partnerships with little known universities and laser focus on one or two outstanding universities and programmes where Nobel Prize winners serve. Encourage SAN members to target global problems: Nobel prizes are largely won through solving problems facing most if not all members of the human race rather than a subset of humanity. SAN


should encourage its members to think global while seeking research problems. Such research which target global but nationally-relevant problems should be preferentially funded by the university through TETFund. For example, global warming is big news at the moment so solving climate change or the forthcoming energy crisis should score points towards winning top-rate science prizes. Equally, incurable diseases including HIV/AIDS and cancer are always a popular area and they attract the attention of Nobel nominators. Good enough, one of our members, Professor Suleiman Bogoro has recently been appointed Executive Secretary of TETFund. A courtesy visit to him will be a great idea. Encourage networking with researchers outside Nigeria: SAN should encourage members to network with their colleagues outside Nigeria. They should seek sponsorship to attend conferences and write articles in newspapers and magazines about their work. The more they make their work known, the better their chances of earning a nomination especially if the work gets the attention of a Nobel Prize nominator. Foster collaboration with American universities: Although the Nobel award is not country-subjective, it has been shown that working in a US lab statistically improves chances of winning the prize. Almost 300 of recipients are American or worked in the US. SAN should encourage Vice-Chancellors to be preferentially selective in favour of US universities while looking for academic and cultural exchanges. I should stress that this recommendation does not in any way limit our scope of such linkages. Intensive publicity for research done by Nigerian scholars: As told by numerous Nobel laureates, at the end of the day, all you have to do is convince somebody else that your research is really important and ground-breaking through conferences, journal articles and popular media reports. Many Nobel winners are not recognised for decades after conducting the key experiment for which they will ultimately be recognised. The Nigerian university community through the joint efforts of NUC and AVCNU should scout for ground-breaking research findings by Nigerian scholars and keep blowing the trumpet to the ears of local and international audiences. The Nigerian Universities Research and Development Fair (NURESDEF) and the popular TV programme- “Voyage of Discovery” are important tools in this regard. Improve Citation of Research by SAN Members: The proportion of highly cited Nigerian researchers continues to dwindle. In the 1960s and 70s, the volume of scholarship ascribed to Nigerians was at about the highest level in Africa in agriculture, medicine, social sciences and science. The literature was awash with scholarly outputs from Nigerians. In 1977, research emanating from Nigeria was the most cited in Africa in agriculture and medicine followed by Egypt and South Africa. The decline started in the 1980s. Exodus of Nigerian scholars to better-paying jobs especially in Europe, North America and Australia commonly-referred to as brain drain was a major contributory factor to the decline. Added to this was the poor research environment which progressive underfunding of the universities induced. By the 1990s, the dye-in-the-wool scholars of the 1960s and 70s had started to fade away. In their place emerged poorly-trained researchers who were satisfied with parboiled research suitable for publication in “roadside” journals in Nigeria and in some Asian countries. Since these publication outlets do not merit extraction into reputable databases, the works of such researchers could not be citable by a large international audience. Yet another enhancing factor to the low score on citation of research by Nigerian scientists is the lowered rigour of criteria for promotion in many universities. There is a heightened demand for professors and other senior academics to meet the requirements of NUC on staff mix (25% professors; 35% senior lecture and 40% others) for programme accreditation. A lecturer Grade 1 in a federal university who is a year old in post is elevated to the rank of a senior lecturer in a new state university.


At the close of his/her one-year anniversary as a senior lecturer, an opening presents itself in a new private university as an associate professor. The low rigour of appointment in the private university leads to the appointment being made. A year or two down the road, he/she becomes a full professor! In four years of skeletal addition to his/her lecturer 1 curriculum vitae, a full professorial rank is attained. The volume of citable research papers is minimal. While this is one of the extreme examples, the general pattern is pervasive. It is worthy of remark that the number of universities with stringent appointment and promotion conditions favouring citable scholarship is growing. Many first generation federal universities and a few others in other generations are in this group. Training of staff by Editors of Science, Nature and other high-impact journals: SAN should work with NUC and AVCNU to bring to Nigeria, the editors of Science, Nature and other high-impact journals to conduct workshops on techniques for publishing in these journals. I recall that on my invitation a few years ago, NUC was able to support the Editor of the No.1 journal in science education in the world, based in the US- the Journal of Research in Science Teaching (JRST) to Abuja. Science-education researchers from all Nigerian universities participated in the training workshop many of whom were able to publish some of their works in JRST as a consequence of training received. This practice should be expanded and sustained. Mentoring by senior colleagues: Mentoring by senior colleagues who are active in research should be encouraged by SAN. Some incentive for such mentoring is worthwhile. Conclusion In this keynote address we undertook a quick tour of advances in science and technology that impact on national security. Our focus was on border security, food security, health security, environmental security, new materials and products and science education. Left unattended are dozens of several important areas including economic and social security and cultural security. I am sure the numerous scientific papers that will be presented at the conference will add to the rich corpus of data from Nigeria, on advances in science and technology. Since there is no stopping the advance of science, we will continue to work in our different laboratories to address unanswered questions about nature. While nudging at the problems demanding the application of science and technology, we should keep tackling the impediments along the way chiefly capacity deficit, non-clement laboratory/workshop environment and depressed motivation of Nigerian scholars. It is worth remarking the alarm raised on April 23, 2014 (just a few days ago) by TETFund that scholars in Nigerian universities are unable to access huge research grants made available by the Fund owing to capacity deficit. It is my view that the huge injection of federal funds to the Nigerian university system being dividend of the last ASUU strike, should be applied to breaking down these barriers. Within the next three years, close to a trillion Naira would have been released to the Nigerian public university system. If leakages in the application of the funds are not blocked and if the projects to be funded are not carefully thought through, we will end of not seeing any significant positive impact on the quality of delivery of university education including quality and quantity of scientific research. I am optimistic of a bright future for science and technology research in Nigeria. The human elements for success are there with the huge potential of Nigerians and the resilience of character. In spite of what people say, Nigerian scholars are revered and respected in international academic meetings for their sound intellectual contributions. Some evidence of Nigerian scholarship was provided on April 15, 2014, when the World Bank approved US$150 million to fund 19 university-based centres of excellence in seven countries in West and Central Africa. The bulk of the funding will go to universities in Nigeria, which won 10 of the centres! It is the hope of many that if the work environment and incentive system for the Nigerian scientist are elevated to the status of what obtains in the developed


world, we will be world leaders in harnessing the power of science and technology for national and global security in the shortest possible time. I cannot wait to see this dream actualise. Thank you for your attention and have a successful conference. Peter A. Okebukola April 28, 2014 References

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