The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has been told to consider the College of Agriculture, Science and Technology, Lafia as the take-off point for the newly approved Agricultural Machinery and Equipment Development Institute (AMEDI), Lafia, Nasarawa State.
The institute was recently approved by President Muhammadu Buhari for the north central zone of the country to be hosted by Nasarawa State.
According to a statement by the assistant chief information officer of NASENI, Chinyere Obiorah- Ekwuazi, the provost of the college, Dr. Musa Maikafi, made the plea when he led a delegation of the school’s management team on a courtesy visit on the executive vice chairman of NASENI, Prof. Mohammed Haruna at the agency’s headquarters in Abuja.
He said the approval of their request would enable the college forge collaboration with the agency in the area of research and development of modern tools and equipment to modernize the practice of agriculture for the benefit of its students, the state and the country at large.
Maikafi said they had earlier asked NASENI for a digital computer numerically controlled (CNC) lathe machine, pointing out that strengthening of relationship with the agency, would be help helpful to the school, especially in training, capacity building and research to provide manpower and services to Nasarawa State and the country.
“We earlier requested for digitalized CNC Lathe Machine for the college and NASENI responded by sending a delegation to the school to inspect our facilities and had also granted our request. So, we decided to pay a visit to the agency to make the relationship stronger and find possible areas of collaboration in areas of research and development in modern agricultural tools and the training of our students.
“The world is today running on ICT, so we need to carry our students along, train and educate them on the importance of science and technology. We have identified NASENI as an agency we can work with for technical and engineering training for our students” he said.
He commended NASENI for the new agricultural institute in the state and also solicited its support towards fashioning out subjects for its training and vocational center accredited and recognized by TETFUND, saying it would be of huge benefit to the students and also lead to the development of the school’s science, engineering and innovation pursuit.
In his remarks, the NASENI boss said the mission and request by the college to the agency were within its mandate because the agency was supporting the development of science, technology and innovation in the country as “it is the solution to everything in the world”
He said 12 additional institutes had been approved by the president in 12 states of the federation aside each of the six geo-political zones having agricultural machinery and equipment development institute, adding Lafia was lucky to have the institute designated for the zone.
Haruna promised that NASENI would work with the college once the areas of collaboration were identified.