From Charity Nwakaudu, Abuja
The Director General/ CEO, National Metallurgical Development Center, (NMDC), Jos, Prof. Linus Asuquo has stated that there can’t be diversification of the country’s economy without adequate Research and Development.
The DG, while speaking in an interactive session with journalists, in Abuja, yesterday, stressed that Research and Development must be prioritize for any country to attend some global recognitions.
 He said,” if we are to go forward in this country,Research and Development, that is where our priority should be, if we really want to develop in this country. If we want to diversify our economy, we can not diversify without meaningful research and Development as a lot of research has to be done for us to go forward”
 “Like I said, if we have adequate funding and we pay attention to what we are doing, given priority, we should be expecting development in the country. Let me say this, as I have repeated many times, we should not play with the Ajaokuta Steel company.
Prof  Asuquo further lamented that poor power supply in the country is seriously affecting meaningful research.
“For any meaningful research, power was necessary and there was no power. We were going with a small generator and we could not do any effective research, so I had to find an alternative power source by solar system so we had to install the solar system in all the laboratories for effective analysis and till now, is 24/7. People can Annalise equipment.
On the challenges confronted so far, the DG said “there are lots of changes, research and Development is capital intensive in any country, by the grace of God I have been able to in my span of sixty eight years to travel to more than fifty six countries of the world and I have seen that research and Development is capital intensive, the whole world is putting attention in research and Development, people are budgeting between three to four percent GDP for research and Development and I want to thank Mr. President because recently, he increase form zero point one to zero point five but that is still very inadequate.