Nigeria ranks 96th on innovations index – Report

Nigeria ranked 96th in the overall innovation index with a score of 28.2 per cent in the ranking involving 100 countries.
This was contained in a report presented by the Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa’I, at the National Universities Commission in Abuja on Friday.
The report said that the ministry held its first National Education Innovations Exhibitions in November 2012.
The report said that in creative outputs, Nigeria scored 43.8 percentage points and ranked 21st out of 131 countries, which implied that Nigeria was a very creative country.
It noted that with these strong points, Nigeria was a creative country, especially in the area of arts/film industry, with the rapid growth of Nollywood over the years.
The report said: “The index also shows that Nigeria is innovative in business models and this is evident in the strong domestic competition between SME’s for market share.
“On all the other dimensions of the innovation index, Nigeria was weak as it ranked 106th on infrastructure with 21.0 per cent, due to very poor scores in ICT.
“Though low in infrastructure, it is worthy to note the commendable score in share of renewable in energy use (ranked 7th with 50.1 per cent) and ecological foot print and bio capacity (ranked 42nd with 36.5 per cent).
“This is quite evident in the country as energy, especially power supply, has been a great challenge and has greatly reduced the ability for the nation’s entrepreneurs to compete globally.”
The report also stated that Nigeria ranked low in scientific outputs, owing to poor score in knowledge creation and business sophistication.
According to the report, it is clear that innovation is not a preserve of any nation or people but an important tool for driving the economic progress and competitiveness of economies.
It stated that innovation was highly inclusive, multi-disciplinary, inter-sectoral and interactive process involving a diverse network of companies, stakeholders, institutions, users and governments.
The report noted that the task of rebuilding an eco-system to nurture innovation had become imperative.
It called for more comprehensive preparations to ensure the success and survival of Nigeria in international trade.