Akinwumi Adesina: Nigeria must adopt advanced technologies to improve manufacturing

Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), says there is a need for Nigeria to transition to smart and digitised manufacturing.

Adesina spoke on Thursday in Lagos at the Business Day chief executive officers’ (CEO) forum.

“Nigeria must look beyond the industries of today into the industries of the future and develop a plan and capacity to compete in the smart industries that will become the main drivers of global economies,” NAN quoted him as saying.

”The fourth industrial revolution, based on automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data computing, 3-D printing and additive manufacturing are rapidly transforming industrial manufacturing.

“Nigeria must therefore enhance its readiness to transition to digitised and smart manufacturing.”

Adesina said the rising use of robots for manufacturing would pose a challenge for Nigeria’s drive to attract and be competitive in labor-intensive light manufacturing.

The AfDB president said the global digital economy is estimated to be worth over $16 trillion.

”The use of Internet of Things (IoT) will raise productivity of labour in manufacturing, deploy smart machines, manufacturing platforms and systems, connecting machines and people,” he said.

“And it will use machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve speed and efficiencies of complex manufacturing processes.”

Adesina said it was time for rapid investment in digital skills for manufacturing, retooling of workers, vocational training, digitisation of industrial processes, and investments in digital infrastructure and enabling environment.

”It is time to prepare students in sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics,” he said.

“It is time for the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria to establish ‘Industrial Digital Skills Academies’ and link them to universities and technology innovation hubs.

“It is time for federal and state governments to make massive investments in digital infrastructure to support learning and skills development for global labor market demand.”

Speaking on AfDB’s efforts in helping Nigeria to skill up digitally, Adesina urged the country to make agriculture a major wealth creating sector.

He said: “It is time to take bold policy measures to drive the structural transformation of agriculture, with infrastructure and spatial economic policies.

“That will help turn the rural economies of Nigeria away from being zones of economic misery to new zones of economic prosperity.

“The key for this is the development of Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs) across the country.

“These will be zones enabled with infrastructure and logistics, to support private sector food and agriculture companies to locate close to the areas of production, and to process and add value to food and agricultural commodities.”