For decades, the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) lived in the shadows of its own potential—known more for excellent research documents than for actual products Nigerians could buy, use, or feel in their daily lives. It was a familiar Nigerian story: brilliant ideas that had been trapped on the shelves of government institutions, celebrated in theory but absent in practice. The old NASENI reflected this contradiction. But the Nigeria of today can no longer afford that luxury.
Two years ago, when Khalil Suleiman Halilu accepted the responsibility of steering NASENI, he did so with an understanding that the agency’s mandate could no longer be limited to research for research’s sake. The country needed something more urgent, more pragmatic: an institution that converts knowledge into prototypes and prototypes into commercial value. This is how nations industrialise—not through policy papers alone, but through factories, technology hubs, engineering capability, and the scaling of indigenous innovation.
Under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, NASENI was called to become exactly that: an engine of creation, collaboration, and commercialization. And the EVC made that pivot the cornerstone of the agency’s reform journey.
Khalil Halilu was clear from the start: NASENI had to transform from “a research agency” into “a force of commercialization.” In other words, the agency needed to make things—real things—at scale, for Nigeria and for export. To achieve this, he anchored reforms on three bold policy frameworks: the Creation–Collaboration–Commercialization Blueprint, the Green Economy Roadmap, and the Innovation-to-Commercialisation Framework. These were his working templates, aimed at turning Nigeria’s aspirations into operational plans.
Today, the evidence speaks for itself. Forty-four indigenous products have moved from concept to the marketplace. Fifty-five projects have been executed across the country. Eighteen dormant research and development centres are alive again, with six entirely new ones established. More than fifty partnerships—spanning defence, energy, ICT, agriculture, and biotechnology—now anchor the work of the agency.
In just two years, NASENI has shifted Nigeria’s story from research that lingers on the shelves to innovation that is delivered, deployed, and felt across the nation.
Across the country, NASENI’s impact is no longer abstract. It is visible, tangible, and measurable.
The 40-hectare Solar Industrial Park in Nasarawa is positioning Nigeria as a regional powerhouse for renewable energy systems. The CNG Reverse Engineering Centre in Abuja is training hundreds of engineers to support the transition away from petrol to alternative fuels. In Bauchi and Jigawa, solar-powered irrigation technologies are helping farmers bridge the climate challenge and improve yields.
The National Asset Restoration Programme is reviving heavy machinery—over 1,000 tractors in Borno and Niger alone—restoring productivity across agricultural belts that have long suffered from equipment shortages.
And in the skies, NASENI is laying the groundwork for Nigeria’s aviation technology future. Through the NASCAV programme, the nation is building capacity in drones, aircraft recovery, and eventually helicopter technology—opening industries that Nigeria has historically depended on foreign expertise to access.
These wins are the foundations of a nation determined to industrialise on its own terms.
One of NASENI’s most striking achievements under Halilu is the localisation of innovation. Nigerians today can proudly own laptops, tablets, televisions, electric motorcycles, cookstoves, irrigation pumps, and other tools made by Nigerian engineers in Nigeria. The agency’s commercialisation drive is proving a point long overdue: that Made in Nigeria can finally mean Made with quality.
Beyond tech and tools, NASENI has embedded itself in human capital development.
Initiatives like She-Fly and DELT-Her are giving women access to drone technology and engineering careers. Youth-focused programmes like Innovate Naija and the Delta-2 partnership with the Czech Republic are nurturing new creators, inventors, and problem-solvers. And through technology roadshows across all 36 states, NASENI has taken its message directly to communities, showing young Nigerians that innovation is not a distant idea—it is theirs.
Industrialisation is never achieved in isolation. Recognising this, NASENI has forged partnerships with global players—from Haier to Chery, from Caverton to DICON—across energy, mobility, ICT, defence, and agriculture. These partnerships will serve as technical bridges linking Nigerian innovation to global supply chains and markets.
The benefits of all these are unmistakable. Thirty thousand direct jobs have already been created, with more than two million indirect jobs in sight. New campuses, laboratories, and technology parks are taking shape across the country. NASENI now has a presence in every state of the federation.
This is the foundation of a new Nigerian economy—one that builds, one that exports, and one that competes with confidence on the global stage.
As NASENI marks two years under Khalil Halilu’s leadership, the message from the agency is clear and unmistakable: the era of endless research reports with no real-world impact is over. The agency has stepped into its rightful role—not merely studying industrialisation, but driving it. And it is doing so with the full backing of a President who understands that no nation develops without strong indigenous engineering capabilities.
NASENI’s trajectory is resetting Nigeria’s industrial narrative. For the first time in a long time, the country is not just talking about innovation; it is building it, commercialising it, and exporting it. This is the path that nations like China, India, and Brazil followed. Nigeria is now on that path—decisively.
Two years in, NASENI has shown what is possible when vision meets execution. The work ahead is vast but promising. As Halilu puts it, innovation is no longer distant; it is local, present, and Nigerian.
What NASENI is the architecture of a future in which Nigerian-made technologies set global standards. This future will be measured not by import bills but by factories, labs and campuses that create jobs and sustain livelihoods; where local industries, not foreign imports, drive employment; and where the ingenuity of the Nigerian mind becomes one of our nation’s chief exports. That future is no longer an idea on paper—it is taking shape now, and NASENI is leading the way.
– Bature Danlami, a technology enthusiast writes from Kano State.
