His Excellency, the Deputy Governor of Benue State, Dr. Samuel Odeh has led a high-profile Benue State official on a courtesy visit to the Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the  National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Dr. Obiageli Amadiobi.

Speaking during the visit, the Deputy Governor said that the team was in NOTAP under the directive of His Excellency, the executive governor of Benue State, Rev. Fr. Dr. Hyacinth Lormem Alia to interact with NOTAP on areas of collaboration and how the State can leverage on NOTAP’s experience and expertise on technology development to assist in establishment of fruit juice production plants and digital skills acquisition for the youths.

The Deputy Governor expressed Benue State’s interest in leveraging NOTAP’s wealth of experience to enhance the State’s agricultural and technological capabilities, creating jobs and boosting economic growth through their natural endowment as the food basket of the nation.

He said that the in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda mantra of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s administration, the state government is committed to ensuring that the teaming youth of the state are engaged through digital skill’s development for rapid economic transformation of the state.

Dr. Odeh said that in order to ensure rapid educational development of the state, the state government apart from the Federal University of Agriculture Makurdi established in the state, the current state government has recently established Benue State University of Agriculture, Science, and Technology to fast-track education and digital transformation of the state.

He said that from NOTAP’s mandate and its interventionist programmes and projects in several Universities and research establishments across the country, the Office is in the position to assist the State in grooming critical skilled manpower, as well as in adopting appropriate advanced technologies in fruit juice production to avoid post-harvest losses experienced in the state.

The Deputy Governor reaffirms NOTAP’s critical role in Industry-Academia linkage through the through the NOTAP-Industry Research Laboratory Upgrade (NIRLUP) initiative as well as other developmental initiative and requested the Office to extend such assistant to their new University for a smooth take-off.

Responding to the presentation by the leader of the team, the Director General of NOTAP, Dr. Obiageli Amadiobi said that NOTAP is ready and committed to partner with the Benue State government in ensuring the domestication of relevant technologies for fruit juice production and youth’s digital skills acquisition.

Dr. Amadiobi said that Benue State which is the food basket of the nation is blessed with an arable land  that produces all kinds of seasonal fruits but encounter high post-harvest losses due to lack of fruit juice processing factories. He added that as critical state and stakeholder in the food sufficiency of the nation, the state needs to deploy appropriate technologies to ensure that there are minimal post-harvest losses and secure food sufficiency for the nation

She said that the primary responsibility of NOTAP is to regulate the inflow of foreign technologies into the country but also has the duty to encourage the development of indigenous technologies. She said that the Office had conducted a prefeasibility study on establishment of fruit juice factories in Benue and other States that have the comparative advantage and will collaborate with the State in ensuring the realization.

In a Press Statement signed by the Chief Information Officer of NOTAP, Raymond Onyenezi Ogbu, the NOTAP Boss stated that based on NOTAP’s constant interaction with the industry, the Office realized that the Country is in dare need an array of highly skilled manpower and to address the situation urgently, the Office has initiated the National Outsourcing Value Acceleration, Project NOVA to ensure a deliberate digital and AI training of Nigerian youths.

Dr. Amadiobi further stated that the Office has embraced a triple helix approach of bringing the government, academia, and the industry together through an initiative known as NOTAP-Industry Technology Transfer Fellowship (NITTF) and asked the University to ensure their students participate in the next selection process to benefit from the sponsorship programme.