EDI would like to suggest that the next Nigerian President come 2023 should be a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering or a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Pharmacy.
As for Engineering most of Nigeria’s problems are engineering oriented including political engineering or social engineering.
The more obvious are water supply challenges, electricity, traffic and bad roads. Food insecurity and job security are also national security challenges. Engineers are crucial to food production and job creation.
One hundred million Nigerians exposed to killer water which is also of interest to pharmacists under food and drug administration and control. I mean water in sachets.
There are originally four pillars of development namely steel, paper, oil and electricity. None of these pillars are intact. These pillars all belong to engineers so why outsource them to non engineers.?
Thirdly we need engineers to stem the tide of unbridled importation. We either manufacture or we die!
Back to pharmacy we have a grave humanitarian problem as far as drugs are concerned. A whole generation of Nigerians are lost to counterfeit drugs. They have been dubbed the tramadol generation!
I would rather refer to them as the Flutterwave generation.
Then there is a need for drug research for the peculiarities of the Nigerian environment besides about 90 per cent of drugs used in nigeria are imported that is not sustainable.
Without engineers and pharmacists we would all be living in caves and Nigerians today are almost metaphorically living in caves.
Augustine Togonu- Bickersteth wrote in from the University of East London, Docklands, London England
ED
