ACADEMIC RESEARCH IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES: A GOLDMINE IN THE REFUSE BIN

Academic Research is an essential 6-units (or more) course in Nigerian Universities. It is done as a way of exposing undergraduate and Postgraduate students to research and hence, development. Research work gives the student the standard exposure they need to excel well in their field of study. They are to work on an area of interest in which they are being supervised on the procedure, observations and reporting of their research. Many problem solving researches are being published daily which if invested into, will bring about national development and economic growth.
From time immemorial, University research works has only been seen as a means to get a degree and move on to graduation. This has made it a necessity to only students when they are carrying out the project with the high hopes of abandoning it after submission or publishing. Nigeria is a nation blessed with brilliant people who has mind blowing ideas, but lacks Technocratic leaders who will see an opportunity in every sector, and I will like to recall that the emphasis by the government to diversify the economy for over two decades has only been a mirage. One can profoundly deduce that if the research works of most Nigerian universities especially those in the science field are funded by the government or private investors, there will be no need for any uproar on the high rate of unemployment in this country.
Furthermore, majority of these setbacks can be traced down to the so-called project supervisors who are more interested in publishing the project for their job/career pursuit without seeing beyond how to develop the finding of a research work for economic development. There are cases where some use it as a means of extorting students and also taking advantage of them. For instance, I vividly recollect how nine colleagues and I worked in recycling of Cocoa waste and utilizing it for animal feed production, having spent over a thousand dollars, we followed the normal research procedure, wrote our articles, presented it to a panel of lecturers, submitted both the hard and soft copy for grading and till date, nothing more. No information on how to convert these research work into a project of economic value.  In this case, the project supervisor being the chief researcher has the autonomous decision to write proposals using facts from the research to source for public and private investors. A good economist can attest to the number of graduates a cocoa waste recycling plant will employ or the revenue it will generate for both government and private individuals. Various research works has been made and some includes; the use of organic substance in preserving agricultural produce as against the conventional synthetic preservatives which may be carcinogenic. These will help solve the issues of produce preservation in agriculture. Another research work I will like to share is the use of plants for medicinal purpose which helps to improve the health sector and reduce medical tourism. In the digital sphere, final year student of the University of Lagos worked on a software that counts the number of vehicles playing through a route, such technologies are essential in Toll-gates, but sadly, it was not invested into.
On an endnote, so many problem-solving research works were made to recognize a certain problem and look for a way it will be solved in a scientific and more standardized approach. Hence, it is highly recommended that government and private investors look into past researches and invest financially into the feasible ones.



Onele Emeka James,
emekyne@gmail.com