Dearest Nigerians, last year the
Rockefeller foundation launched a global challenge offering $1m to the
winner of an innovation that can prolong Nigeria's cassava shelf life.
In my mind, I thought that would be easy, no country in the world grows
and eats more cassava than Nigeria; so I am pretty sure a Nigerian
would win this competition- No be to create a way make cassava no spoil
for a few days before processing - in short, the title of the challenge mentioned NIGERIA.
To my surprise, yesterday Rockefeller Foundation announced a United Kingdom institution as a winner. Yes, the University of Greenwich's Natural Resources Institute won $500,000 for coming up with the best method of preserving Nigeria's cassava.
This made me wonder : what are our institutions doing? OAU, ABU, FutMinna, YabaTech, UniLag etc?
What is our ministry of science and technology doing ? Still figuring out how to make pencils while other countries are innovating solutions for your domestic products ???
What a shame! People whey no dey swallow cassava, na dem go come tell us how to preserve our own cassava. No wonder ! even India dey package garri come sell for Naija.
The sad occurrence in this cassava challenge relates to nearly every sector in Nigeria's economy .
Since last year, Millionaires Academy (www.register.millionaire.ng) has been giving out an updated list of 50 organizations offering millions of dollars to entrepreneurs in Nigeria, including Rockefeller Foundation.
Many Nigerians looked the other way. Many have concluded in their mind that nothing good can ever come out of Nigeria.
So they prefer to gossip, point accusing fingers in every direction, but to themselves.
We sleep while other nations innovate.
We gossip politics; other nations participate.
We alienate ourselves from governance and socio -economic development while other nations practice inclusive governance.
Our competition lies in the grandest of weddings while other nations dwell in the greatest of inventions.
We pride in the cost of our imported auto luxuries while Ajaokuta's lays moribund... worse still is our being ignorant of the fact that the past 10 years, Rolls Royce has gotten some alloys from Kogi state's illegal mines.
Do we blame our colonial masters again? Freedom was fought for by our national heroes, we simply enjoy the chains around our necks ... hence, we gladly place them back ...and in different forms .
Wake up Nigeria, your candle is blowing out...
Meanwhile many other challenges are still on all over the world. We can win millions of dollars by providing solutions that will better the lives of everybody.
Join Millionaires Academy today for a full list of over 50 different grants available to you today.
www.register.millionaire.ng
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