Clement Jimbo is the member representing Abak/Etim Ekpo/Ika constituency of Akwa Ibom State in the House of Representatives. In this interview, Jimbo said his proposed legislation on National Commission for Technology Transfer, Promotion and Acquisition, if passed and assented to, would turn Nigeria into a lithium production hub, among other things.

 

What is the Technology Transfer Commission Bill all about?  

The bill for technology transfer was born out of patriotism and the love for the country. If you look at the population of Nigeria, we have able-bodied men and women, vibrant and intelligent youths who desire to put in their productivity in adding value to their country. As a father, which is the nation now, you cannot but equally look for ways and means you can equally meet the yearnings and aspirations of your children.

So, when I came across this gap, I asked myself if we did not have all the resources and the technical know-how to advance and add value to our raw materials.

There is something we have that we cannot look away from, which is our population. Can’t we transform these vibrant, energised and intelligent youths with so much consumable power to productivity so that we can leverage on that and bring what we do not have in exchange for what we have? That is what the bill is all about.

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Let us leverage on our vibrant consuming population to attract what we do not have to complement with what we have. For example, the National Bureau of Statistics said we had over 200 million handsets used every day in this country. And if you look at the device called handset, it has different components. One of those components is the battery. And we all know the active ingredient in the production of batteries is lithium.

The question is: Do we have lithium in Nigeria? We have them in abundance and in their raw form. So, how can we add value to these raw materials so that they can become valuable? 

Let’s assume that a country wants to shift in a billion pieces of handsets to Nigeria, for instance, we will tell them that it is a good idea. But we are not just going to be a consuming country of what you are producing in your own country. We must produce a component of that device in our country because we have the raw materials. So we will tell them that their product will not get into Nigeria’s market except we produce a component of what they are shifting in. You produce a billion copies of handsets and we produce a billion copies of batteries via the technology that you are deliberately, intentionally selling to us in exchange for our consumption power. So, you are shifting a billion copies of handsets into Nigeria and we are shifting a billion copies of batteries to you. You sell your handset to us, maybe at $5 per copy and we sell the batteries to you at $1. So, there is a transfer of technology. There is an additional value to our raw material. There is employment created and it adds value to our gross domestic product. So, country A benefits and country B benefits.

What we are suggesting now is not in isolation with what other countries are leveraging on to develop.  

Right now in China, there are certain social media services that cannot get into the country except there is a complete understanding of how that technology would advance its economy.

It is only Nigeria that we sometimes sit and allow every country to bring in whatever they have to dump on us. The time is now for us to say no. If you cannot deliberately give us the technology to add value to what we have, then don’t bring in your products. We are ready to live like that. And trust me, out of 10 countries, if eight say no to us, two will say yes.

 

Are there provisions in the bill to discourage exportation of Nigeria’s raw products, especially lithium, and promote local production instead? 

Yes, there are provisions that are embedded in the bill so far. It is in terms of fines. But we are still going to look at that. But most importantly, like I said, this bill is borne out of patriotism. No matter how well intentioned a bill is, if its operators are not patriotic, it will not see the light of the day as it should. So it would take patriotism across the board. In the National Assembly for example, by the grace of God, if it scales through third reading and it is passed and the president assents it into law, it is left for the executive to implement it for the overall interest of Nigerians.

Right now in Nasarawa State, 4,000 metric tons of lithium are being mined every day and shifted in its raw form outside the shores of Nigeria; and they processesd it and ship the finished products back to us to consume. Just like what was happening before now—we have the crude but it was shipped outside, refined, then brought back for us to consume. What is happening with us? Let’s just be frank. If Nigerians want this country to develop, I give us one year and we will fix it by ourselves.

 

In Nigeria, we produce thousands of graduates from various fields of engineering and computer science yearly but they lack the requisite skills to translate their knowledge into production of tangible products; what do you say to that?

I agree with you completely. I am from the construction sector. I studied Quantity Surveying, a very practical stuff. And let me pause here to commend the president. Recently, I think the president added some vocational studies – plumbing, electrical, tailoring and stuff like that, to be part of our curriculum. And that is apt. So in my years of being actively participating in the construction sector, it will  amaze you to know that we did not find Nigerians that can lay these tiles the way you’ve seen on this floor effectively. You had to go to Togo, Ghana, Cameroon to bring people.

You hardly find a Nigerian that can plaster the wall for it to be vertically straight, even the POP (Plaster of Paris). These are skills that are lacking in our curriculum. So if the president says it has to be taught, I agree with him completely; the same thing in our universities. Of what use would somebody spend four, five or six years in the university studying a course that is irrelevant in solving problems in our society? It is time for us to re-jig our educational system and make it alive in line with current realities. 

 

How much would the proposed legislation add to the country’s gross domestic product if eventually passed into law?

If this bill is passed and assented into law and enforced, what it means is that no car will be imported into this country with a battery. The car manufacturers will sell to us or give us the specification of the quality of battery they need to function in that car, then we will produce it here.

I am sure the iPhone 15 or 16 are already out. By next year, whether it is iPhone 17 that will come out, what that means is that it will not enter this country without us producing the battery if the law is in place. And so many laptops that are battery operated, cameras, microphones that use batteries, all those battery specifications will be produced here. The company will send to us what they need and they will equip us with the technology, possibly come and site their factories here and produce them here, just to add value to our raw materials. Just imagine what that would do to Nigerians. The 12 million cars we currently have in Nigeria means that we will be producing a minimum of 12 million batteries, maybe every quarter. I am not even talking about cell phones. Is it solar renewable energy? The benefits are uncountable. We just need one law to be operational and effective. It will revolutionise the entire thing. 

 

How practicable do you think this proposal of technology transfer or barter initiative would be, especially being mindful of the fact that a number of these advanced countries already have their finished products ready to be shipped to the markets? 

I had a meeting with the Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake. I shared with him because his ministry is a major stakeholder in this very bill. He agreed completely. In fact, he told me that the government was also thinking in that direction.

When the president commissioned the lithium factory in Nasarawa State, he appealed to the company to manufacture here. You make your money, not just for Nigeria, but for the entire West Africa. But of course, stuff like that cannot just be at the whims and caprices of who becomes a president or the minister. If there is a legal framework, it would attract companies. That is the advantage of having this legal framework in place to even protect companies that want to set up their factories here, produce the materials here and sell to us and other countries.

 

Won’t this proposed legislation be in conflict with an existing government agency—the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Transfer (NOTAP)? 

The moment this bill is passed into law, it automatically repeals the NOTAP Act, 2004. And if you look at their core objectives, it is just to monitor the inflow of technology into Nigeria. You would just sit down and things are passing. Of what benefit is that to Nigeria? This one is coming to strengthen their responsibilities by making sure that only technology that adds value to our raw materials is allowed into the country. So it is not a duplication of agency.