NASENI Campus Project As Innovation Hub For Nigeria’s Industrial, Technological Future

The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) is at the forefront of the drive to industrialize Nigeria and turn the vast potential of the nation to economic opportunities through massive investment in technology.

This development is predicated on the vision of President Bola Tinubu under the Renewed Hope Agenda to boost the industrial base of the country through massive infrastructure and creating the enabling environment. This is complemented by the ceaseless efforts of the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NASENI, Mr. Khalil Suleiman Halilu, who has introduced vigorous and productive programs and projects that have changed the agency for the better and made immense impacts on the country in recent years.

The NASENI boss has demonstrated capacity in his resolve to change the fortunes of the country and the NASENI Campus project is a prime example of the commitment and resilience in the nationalist quest to transform Nigeria’s raw materials to unlock opportunities needed to boost the tech potential of the nation.

All over the world, industrialization raises the volume and variety of manufactured items produced, which raises employment and raises people’s standards of living. This has defined NASENI’s push for the Campus project in line with the nation’s Industrial Policy, which targets economic growth and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) skills training.

NASENI is looking to add more finance and investment, infrastructure, and power and energy, as well as competition and trade, all of which are key strategic objectives of the industrial policy of the federal government.

Nigeria’s industrial base remains heavily fragmented and reliant on imported raw materials and intermediate industrial inputs, limiting domestic value addition.

It is in this regard that the ongoing construction of the NASENI Campus project in the Abuja Technology Village, Lugbe, demonstrates the commitment of the Tinubu Administration to harness the resources of nation worth billions of dollars to position the country among its peers in the global community thereby halting the exporting of raw commodities and importing finished products.

The NASENI Campus in the Abuja Technology Village has been described as a centre of innovation that shapes and builds pathways from Nigerian Ideas to Industry. It is a flagship Science, Technology and Innovation Complex designed to strengthen Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem. The Campus is being developed to address a critical challenge such as helping promising Nigerian ideas move beyond research and prototypes into market-ready products, businesses and industries.

The Campus will help to catalyze the aggregate industrial output, which in turn will have a powerful long-run direct effect on real gross domestic product (GDP), underscoring that expanding domestic production is mathematically and economically linked to national wealth expansion through such projects.

When completed, the Campus will provide research laboratories, advanced prototyping and fabrication facilities, co-working spaces and collaborative learning facilities where innovators, researchers, engineers and industry can work together.

The project also reflects NASENI’s 3Cs of Creation, Collaboration and Commercialisation, providing a pathway for innovators, including those emerging from initiatives such as InnovateNaija, to develop, test and advance their solutions towards the market.

As construction progresses, each milestone bring NASENI closer to creating the infrastructure needed to turn homegrown innovation into economic and industrial value.

Going with the theme “NASENI Campuse project could generate  thousands of  skilled jobs within five years, help the nation conserve foreign exchange, strengthen national reserves and increase manufacturing’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product.

The tireless EVC/CEO of NASENI Mr. Khalil Suleiman Halilu, in his characteristic move for more successes, recently inspected the ongoing construction of the NASENI Campus located at the Abuja Technology Village, Lugbe in Abuja, reaffirming the Agency’s commitment to building a world-class innovation ecosystem that supports the commercialization of Nigerian ideas.

During the inspection, Halilu reviewed the progress of work with the project team, describing the Campus as a strategic investment that will provide innovators emerging from programmes such as InnovateNaija with the environment and infrastructure needed to transform ideas into market-ready products and scalable businesses.

The EVC noted that the Campus is a key component of the vision he shared a year ago to build a stronger NASENI Innovation Ecosystem, adding that the project reflects the Agency’s commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s innovation capacity and accelerating industrialization through homegrown technology.

Because of the significance of this project to the Federal Government, NASENI entered into partnership with the Abuja Technology Village Free Zone Company to convert the land along the Airport Expressway into a full-scale production zone.  The project moves NASENI from a research-centric institution—leaving prototypes on shelves—into active commercial manufacturing and market-ready consumer goods.

The Agency has embraced the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model for turning Nigeria’s industrial ambitions into reality and its partnerships with both local and international manufacturing companies and technical partners have enabled a thriving atmosphere of industrial manufacturing and commercialization of products.

The campus hosts a variety of manufacturing plants for renewable energy components, battery production, electric vehicles (including the NASENI Electric Keke), and CNG conversion units and the initiative also aims to support the federal ‘Nigeria First Policy’.