House of Representatives member, Hon. Beni Lar has said the unimpressive performances of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC government in the country has placed its opposition counterpart, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP on a vantage position to bounce back in the 2019 poll.
This was even as she decried the continued defection of her party members to the ruling party, saying it was necessary for party men to remain loyal to the principles and ideologies of their parties, no matter the challenges being faced.
She, however, opined that such should be expected, in a situation where a particular party stayed firmed in office for a period of 16 years, insisting that it was not unusual.
Speaking to newsmen, yesterday, in Abuja, during the annual traditional Christmas Ball & Carol, organised by the The Redeemed Christian Church of God, City of David, Lar insisted that APC has not performed as expected, saying the development had had improved the rating of the 16 years of PDP-led administration high.
Lar said it was only through politicians’ commitment and loyalty to their parties that the country’s democracy can grow even as she admitted that the PDP was at the moment passing through some challenges.
“The party is definitely going through some challenges. But every party has a time when after it grows so big, it is bound to fall and rise up again.
“If you look at America, the Republicans stayed in power for eight years and then, the Democrats take it for another eight years and it resolves like that.
“So, there is nothing wrong or unusual about what is happening, it’s just that PDP stayed in power for 16 good years which is a good achievement. I think we should be proud of ourselves that we were able to stay that long. However, we will bounce back, there is no fear about that”, she stressed.
On whether she would defect to the APC, Lar said: “I rule it out completely. I am not joining any other party apart from the PDP. We are the founding fathers of PDP and so, we will stay there and make it work.”
She disclosed that due to poor students’ enrolment in science courses, the House of Representatives had mandated the ministries of education and science and technology to urgently develop a new curriculum to check the unimpressive enrolment of students in the field.
The lawmakers said they were deeply concerned that more people were graduating in Humanities and the Arts than the Sciences, adding that the trend must be reversed through development of a new curricular.
She regretted that many students were tilting towards the Arts and Humanities leaving the Sciences.
Lar said: “We have already discussed with the Ministry of Science and Technology on the need to encourage enrollment in sciences. The ministry would sit down with the Ministry of Education to propose a new curricular to encourage children from when they are very young to take an interest in Mathematics and Sciences, so that when they grow up, they can improve on research and development in the science field.
“This is because research and development is the key to any innovation and success in any country. We don’t have a strong research and development base in this country and we need to have that. Hopefully, we will strengthen that.”
According to her, Nigerian universities were not functioning in line which the aim for which they were established because they were not placing emphasis on research and development.
She suggested that Nigerian universities should strive to be like research institutes, where science and technology should be developed at that stage while breakthrough should also be done through these universities.
Lar said, “The global trend in the world now is the emergence of new trends in science and technology. Many countries, especially in Asia which are not endowed with any natural resource, are doing well technologically. Nigeria of course, has an abundance of natural resources-oil and gas, agriculture, good weather, climatic conditions and the rest.
“In Asia, they don’t have these but they use purely science and technology, research and development to transform the entire economy of the countries. We have seen that innovation is the way of the 21st century and because of the innovation, we have seen that for instance, Taiwan is the biggest manufacturer of computer chips in the world.
“The only way for this country to trully move forward is to embrace the emerging trend in science and technology. Nigeria is yet to appreciate this fully. I must say that in communication, we have done well; in banking, we have also done quite well. But we need to do more in agriculture, so we can be self sustaining.
“Nigeria has mass abundance of land, mass abundance of human resources of animals, poultry and crops. We have favourable climatic conditions, but we don’t produce enough food to feed this nation and 80 per cent of Nigerians live below the poverty line, that is unacceptable.”
Lar added: “So, we are collaborating with the various agencies, we have been having interractive sessions with stakeholders. In fact, we will finish next year, when each agency has shown us their capacity.
“We have even seen the capacity to build weapon here. So many agencies have capacity to even produce nuclear power here, but we have not utilised it. This year, I am happy to say that there would be an increase in the budget of Science and Technology, a very significant increase.”
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