The Plenary Session II was chaired by Alh. Mohammed Nadada Umar, (Director –General, Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, SMEDAN).
A paper titled “Local Raw Materials Content Development and Rapid National Industrialization: Cluster and Triple Helix Concept in the Nigeria Context” was presented by Engr. (Prof.) B.A. Adewumi, FNSE, FNIAE.
In the presentation, Prof. Adewumi spoke on cluster development and the problems challenging industrialization in Nigeria. He observed that Nigeria is naturally endowed with agricultural and mineral resources, which have not been well explored for national economic development. His paper presentation was categorized under the following; Raw materials, Processing, Local content Development, Agricultural resources, Industrialization and Cluster.
He talked on the bane of industrial development in Nigeria where he regretted that Nigeria used to be a major exporting nation for cash crops in the 1960 and 70s but in the recent times (2008) the nation’s total food and agricultural imports were valued at approximately US$1.6 billion per year. He identified the major problems confronting the industrialization of agricultural and mineral processing industries in the country to include: (i) Lack of focus and inconsistent government policies (ii) High bank lending rates (iii) Lack of standardized local machines and machinery for processing agricultural and mineral resources (iv) Development of low quality and inadequate personnel (v) Energy and power problems (vi) Inadequate tools and machinery for manufacturing/fabrication of machine components.
He recommended the adoption of innovative cluster approach as a veritable means of ensuring value addition to local raw materials. This he believed would promote innovation and competitiveness as well as rapid industrial development in Nigeria. Prof Adewumi concluded his presentation by stressing that the adoption of the triple helix concept (government, Industry and Academia linkage) in the national cluster based industrial development of the micro, small and medium scale enterprises in the agricultural and mineral processing sectors should be taken seriously.