Tag Archives: RESEARCH

Nigeria’s pharmaceutical research institute laments inadequate funding

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The Director General of the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development, NIPRD, Karniyus Gamaniel, has called for improved capital funding of research institutions in Nigeria.

Mr. Gamaniel, a professor of pharmacology, made the call at a press briefing in Abuja on Friday. He said the institution had never received more than 50 per cent of its appropriated budgets in the past six years.

“We have never received more than 50 per cent of whatever is usually appropriated to the institution”, he said.

“On aggregate, we were appropriated N1.587billion over six years, and what was released on aggregate is N744.856million. So the aggregate percentage released was 46.92 per cent”.

The director-general had recently been accused of misappropriating $514,000.36 (N77.10million) from a sum of $744,000.38 the World Bank gave the institute to develop anti-diabetic phytomedine.

Explaining the struggle of the institute, the deputy chairman of its research and development committee, Kunle Olobayo, said “For 2016, the fund appropriated was N48million capital and so far we have received N20.4million.”

“Let’s always contextualize figures. You can see that we are coming from appropriation of N100million or N200million and so on, don’t forget the exchange rate of Naira then compared to now when the exchange rate is high.

“Our appropriation is N48 million, which is actually less than $80,000 for a whole year for this institution”.

Mr. Olobayo, a professor, added that “The dollar value is important because everything we use for research in this institution is imported, glassware etc”

Speaking on the actual cost needed to run the institution, the Director General said that “From our own calculation, our estimate is precisely N269 million to run this place.

“Although, this was as at 2015, but as it is now with the exchange rate, it will be higher”.

The Deputy Chairman also addressed the issue of the challenges faced from the producers of herbal medicine.

“The first one is poor documentation. There has to be some form of document for us to be able to give a particular medicine to human”, Mr. Olobayo explained.

“Also, there are unrealistic expectations. So even when they come to us, they think you can get results that will become money for them in one week, two months.

“The process of research and development is slow and deliberate. They don’t like that”, he said.

The director general however called on the federal government to provide funds and support for research institutes like NIPRD.

“The major challenge of this institution is grossly inadequate capital cost. We need funds to carry out research and keep the institution running,” he said.

“We call on the government to provide funds and supports to the institution to enable effective operation.”

TSA stalling varsities’ research – ASUU

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The Treasury Single Account (TSA), introduced by the Federal Government to check corruption in the system, is stalling research in the universities, according to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Exempting the universities from the TSA is among the demands of ASUU, whose members embarked on a one-week warning strike on Wednesday, Nov. 21.

According to its National President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, other demands include the payment of Earned Academic Allowances, effective funding of the universities, an end to the payment of fractions of salaries to some institutions, among others.

Ogunyemi has already warned that ASUU would embark on an indefinte strike after the warning strike, if their demands were not met.

Speaking specifically on the TSA, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Dr. Christopher Piwuna, Chairman, Jos chapter of the union, said that the policy was of utmost concern to the universities because it was impeding their core mandate – research and breakthroughs.

“The TSA is a good policy, but its bottlenecks are too much,” Piwuna told our correspondent on Sunday in Jos.

“International and corporate bodies send research grants to universities, which are paid into the acounts of the institutions, but they get trapped in centralised TSA accounts that are not accessible.

“Such grants come with timelines and the granting institutions get agigated and start asking questions which we can neither answer nor explain. Often, this leads to forfeiture,” he said.

He regretted that the development had led to the loss of many research opportunities and possible breakthroughs, adding that it had also ruptured the confidence between the angry granting institutions and the helpless supposed recipients.

“ASUU has nothing against the TSA, we are only saying that the unversities should be exempted from it in view of the speed with which universities’ activities are carried out and also because lots of funds paid into the schools’ accounts come in from foreign sources,” he explained.

Piwuna admitted, however, that the TSA policy had checked a lot of excessess in the system and should be sustained.

“Some institutions have been found to have up to 25 accounts, some of which are not even known to their Chief Executive Officers.

“Obviously, such accounts were opened by corrupt elements to steal funds; it is a good thing that the TSA has stemmed such recklessness,” he said.

He explained that the warning strike was aimed at forcing government to revitalise the public universities “especially in view of the economic recession that has made it difficult for people to send their children to private universities”.

The ASUU chairman accused government of not giving education the attention it deserved, and vowed that the union would stand its groundS until the right thing was done.

He wondered why government would wait until lecturers began a strike before listening to their concerns.

“Since we started the warrning strike, we have held several meetings with the Senate President and other top stakeholders; one keeps wondering why it is difficult to listen to ASUU early enough so as to avert the worst scenarios.”

He alleged that 22 universities were paying incomplete salaries to workers, and argued that such would only affect commitment to service.

“The Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, for instance, used to collect only 92 per cent of their salaries, but even that has been slashed to 85 per cent.

“ As a union, we have tried to find out why and what we are told is that the budget office has taken six per cent of their recurrent expenditure without any explanation. Certainly, this is a recipe for confusion,” he said.

Piwuna said that ASUU was also “shocked and angry” that states that had not been able to fund their universities were establishing new ones.

He particularly criticised the Edo State Government for starting a new university when the state-owned Ambrose Alli University was being under-funded.

Piwuna also wondered the Bayelsa State Government was working toward establishing an additional state university when it had not been able to meet its commitment to the Niger Delta University.

The ASUU official expressed the union’s readiness to work with stakeholders willing to shore up the fortunes of the educational sector, pointing out that the nation’s fortunes were tied to its growth.

Automobile Industries To Intensify Effort On Research – Onu

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The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, has called on automobile industries in Nigeria to invest in developmental research to achieve sustainability toward market forces.
This is contained in a statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the minister, Mr Taye Akinyemi on Wednesday to the newsmen.
According to the statement, Onu made the call when the management team of Peugeot Automobile Nigeria (PAN) paid him a courtesy visit.
It quoted the minister as saying that deepened research would enable the industries withstand developments that might arise as a result of competitions and unstable market forces.
Onu noted that all the automobile companies that made positive impacts on the economy in the 80’s and 90’s collapsed because they did not invest on research and development projects.
He told the team that multinationals companies all over the world always site research institute in their laboratory and factory to enable them plan and carry out their developmental projects.
Onu expressed appreciation for the contributions some companies made to support the growth of small scale industries in the country.
“I want them to do more in local content development as the Buhari’s administration is striving to industrialise the country,” he said.
He charged companies to always source for their components locally to build the capacity of small scale industries that would supply the components.
He appealed to Nigerians to look inward and patronise locally made goods, adding, “we have the largest market in Africa; we have the largest economy on the continent.”
Earlier, the Managing Director of PAN, Ibrahim Boyi disclosed that PAN was the only automobile company in Nigeria that remained in operation up till date and called for active government policy for its continued survival.
According to the PAN boss, the company which produced reliable vehicles in the past and had also achieved 40 per cent local content in the 80’s has assembled two plants locally.
Mr Boyi said that PAN was committed to creating employment and entrepreneurs by training youths in the society and reducing cost of ownership for their customers and also embarked on community Social Responsibility Programme.
“PAN was set up in 1972 through joint venture between the Federal Government of Nigeria and Peugeot Automobile of France as part of government deliberate policy to boost industrialisation.
“The company has packaged ICT back up training programme and is looking for organisation that share the same commitment for partnership to open garage across the country for the training of youths on the skills required to manage the new products,” it said.

 

(NAN)

Women’s Brains Are Sharper Than Men’s In Old Age – New Study

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Women’s brains age better than men’s but their bodies do not cope as well, research suggests. Even though female life expectancy has increased over the past 20 years, elderly women spend less time with memory problems than they did, a study shows.

The unexpected finding goes against most predictions, which would expect rates of dementia to increase as people live for longer. The same trend, however, was not seen among men, whose total time spent in a state of ‘mild cognitive impairment’ increased slightly.

Last night experts said they could not definitively explain their findings but they suspect that the vast improvements in education for women may be behind the trend.

#BelieveItOrNot Stay In Bed For 70 Days And Earn N3.6m From NASA

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NASA is searching for volunteers who needs to be a piece of their “Bed Rest Study”. The employment is as simple as it sounds. The volunteer simply needs to rest and set down on the bed for 70 days in a row and NASA will pay you $18, 000.

The individual is permitted to do stuff while they are sleeping. They could utilize Skype, read books and play recreations on their smart phones.
This study expects to assert the impacts of the micro scale gravity to the human body. The volunteers on this undertaking should be the individuals who have a solid living, not couch potatoes.

“Once they qualify physically and mentally, we do rigorous physical exercises to test muscle      strength and aerobic capacity. We want people who have the physical and psychological characteristics of an astronaut. They should be able to do the kind of activities that astronauts do,” Dr. Cromwell said.

Register Here

Shakespeare Was Probably High On Drugs When He Wrote His Works… – Research Claims

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He is known as one of the greatest writers that ever lived .However,researchers claims William Shakespeare could have written his plays under the influence of drugs. They claim to have identified traces of cannabis in pipes found in the author’s garden.

According to Daily Mail ,South African scientists carried out a chemical analysis on broken pieces of pipe found in Shakespeare’s garden in Stratford-upon-Avon, as well as in the grounds of his neighbours’ homes.They discovered that four of the pipes from the playwright’s house had traces of cannabis on them – implying that Shakespeare himself may have enjoyed the drug.

Two pipes found nearby had apparently been used to smoke coca leaves, but the researchers suggest that the great writer deliberately rejected the more potent narcotic.
Cannabis had been known in Europe for centuries by Shakespeare’s time, while coca is native to South America and came to the Old World thanks to explorers such as Francis Drake.

Writing in the South African Journal of Science, Professor Thackeray describes how he obtained the pipe fragments from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and submitted them to scientific analysis.

He used a technique called gas chromatography mass spectrometry, which involves separating out different chemicals to discern the make-up of a particular residue.