Oyo: FG Extends Technology-driven Empowerment  To Fight Economic Hardship

In a move to reduce economic hardship and expanding livelihood opportunities across the country, the federal government has extended its technology-driven empowerment and clean-energy intervention to Oyo State.

This is as the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) intensified efforts to deploy science, engineering and innovation as practical tools for the people.

The intervention, under the NASENI Sustainable Empowerment Programme (NSEP), provided beneficiaries with renewable-energy solutions, livelihood support and other practical resources designed to reduce living costs, improve productivity and strengthen economic self-reliance at household and community levels.

Speaking at the Oyo edition of the programme on Wednesday, the executive vice chairman and chief executive officer of NASENI, Mr Khalil Suleiman Halilu, represented by the Director, Information, New Media and Protocol Unit, Mr Segun Ayeyeonikan, said the initiative reflected a central shift in the agency’s approach to ensuring that technological development produced tangible benefits for Nigerians.

“This programme reflects a central conviction of the new NASENI: science, engineering and technology must deliver practical benefits that Nigerians can see, use and experience in their everyday lives,” Halilu said.

He said the agency’s mandate went beyond research, laboratories and technology development to ensuring that innovations reached households, entrepreneurs and communities where they could reduce hardship, improve productivity and create sustainable economic opportunities.

“Our mandate goes beyond research, laboratories, and technology development. It includes ensuring these technologies reach households, entrepreneurs, and communities, where they can reduce hardship, improve productivity, and create sustainable economic opportunities,” he said.

According to him, NSEP was designed to connect innovation with inclusion by providing beneficiaries with technologies, livelihood tools and practical support capable of addressing immediate needs while laying a stronger foundation for self-reliance.

“Through NSEP, NASENI is connecting innovation with inclusion. We are providing beneficiaries with technologies, livelihood tools and practical support designed to address immediate needs while creating a stronger foundation for self-reliance,” he said.

He explained that the empowerment items being distributed under the programme included NASENI Solar Home Systems, NASENI Clean Cookstoves and NASENI Support Packs.

He said the Solar Home Systems would provide reliable renewable energy for lighting, charging essential devices and supporting household and small-business activities, while the Clean Cookstoves would offer safer and more efficient means of cooking.

“The Clean Cookstoves offer a safer and more efficient means of cooking, helping families reduce fuel consumption, household expenses and exposure to harmful smoke,” he said.

Halilu added that the Support Packs would provide immediate relief and strengthen beneficiaries’ capacity to meet essential household needs.

He said the combined interventions were intended to reduce living costs, improve health, enhance productivity and enable beneficiaries to direct more of their resources towards education, enterprise and other productive activities.

The NASENI boss stressed that the objective of the programme was not simply to distribute materials, but to ensure that beneficiaries could use the support to lower costs, improve their productive capacity, generate income and gain greater control over their economic future.

“Our objective is not simply to distribute items. Meaningful empowerment must help people reduce costs, improve their productive capacity, earn income and exercise greater control over their economic future.”

“The true value of today’s intervention will therefore be determined by how beneficiaries use the support they receive and the opportunities they create from it,” he said.

Halilu urged them to use the support responsibly and productively and to ensure that the benefits extended beyond themselves to their families and communities.

He said NASENI’s vision was to create a multiplier effect in which individual empowerment strengthened households, productive households strengthened communities and successful interventions contributed to wider economic progress.

“Our vision is to create a multiplier effect: one empowered person supporting a household, one productive household strengthening a community and one successful intervention inspiring broader economic progress,” Halilu said.

He assured Nigerians that the agency would continue working towards making technological advancement a practical force for improved livelihoods, job creation, industrial development and national prosperity.

“NASENI will continue to work towards a Nigeria where technological advancement is not an abstract idea but a practical force for improved livelihoods, job creation, industrial development and national prosperity,” he said.

In his remarks, the special guest of honour and governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State, Sharafadeen Alli, represented by the Director-General of his campaign organisation, Asiwaju Yemi Aderibigbe, commended NASENI for extending the federal intervention to the state.

Alli said the programme demonstrated the importance of linking technological innovation with practical economic empowerment, particularly at a time when households and small businesses needed interventions capable of reducing operating and living costs.

He said access to appropriate technology and productive resources could help beneficiaries strengthen their livelihoods, become more self-reliant and contribute to economic activity within their communities.

“This is not just about receiving items; it is about creating opportunities for our people to become more productive, independent and economically empowered,” Alli said.

The APC governorship candidate stressed that the sustainability of empowerment programmes depended largely on how beneficiaries deployed the resources made available to them.

He urged recipients to take ownership of the opportunity, maintain the equipment provided and use the intervention as a foundation for developing sustainable economic activities.

“I encourage every beneficiary to see this intervention as a beginning, not an end. Use what you have received responsibly, improve your skills and build something sustainable from the opportunity provided,” he said.

Alli also commended the collaboration between NASENI, elected representatives, government institutions and communities, saying such partnerships could strengthen the delivery of public interventions and extend their impact beyond immediate beneficiaries.