The Minister of Science and Technolo­gy, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, has stated that Nigeria loses billions of naira annually due to lack of value addition to her raw materials and products.

Onu, who stated this in Abuja at the final meeting of the Cabinet Committee set up to source funds for the implemen­tation of the national policy on methanol fuel production, said Nigeria, must start doing things differently as COVID-19 has exposed the nation’s weaknesses.

He underscored the need for Nige­ria to add value to her products and services, to gain international recog­nition and boost nation’s economy and conserve foreign exchange.

According to him, “Nigeria has tre­mendous potentials to be a truly great nation. COVID-19 is a wake-up call for us as a nation to begin to do things dif­ferently.

“We need to believe in ourselves and think of how we can produce many of the things we need. If we look at our crude oil and natural gas, we export them without adding value to them. We don’t make much money we would have made, if we had processed them.

“We lose a lot of jobs by failing to con­vert natural resources to products and services through value addition.

“We need to use science and technol­ogy to convert our raw materials into products and services.”

Commenting on the National Policy on Methanol Fuel Production, Onu de­scribed methanol as a wonder chemical that could be processed into thousands of by-products as well as used to diver­sify the economy by powering various sectors.

He pointed out that methanol could be of tremendous benefits in the indus­tries, transportation, power, energy sectors of the economy, urging all the stakeholders to work inexorably to pro­mote and implement the policy.