Deputy Vice Chancellor (Development Services) University of Lagos, Folasade Ogunsola revealed yesterday that over 600million people in Africa lack access to electricity.
“The digital revolution is dependent on energy. The access rate to electricity in Africa has been slowly rising since 2000 and currently stands at 43percent but Africa accounts for 600m of the one billion people globally without access to electricity” he added.
Delivering the 7th annual public lecture of the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) in Ibadan said the projection for sub-saharan Africa is that access will double by 2030 but there will still be about 600million without access due to high population growth rates and uneven development.
While saying this low rate of access can be turned to a major advantage with the embrace of renewable energy such as solar energy,Ogunsola,a professor stated Nigeria must embrace the use of renewable solar energy to increase access to electricity in Africa and Nigeria.
While maintaining that the digital revolution requires energy, the don attributed low access to electricity to high population growth rate and uneven development.
She advised the government to urgently work on how to control the population saying unless the population is controlled infrastructure development will not match a geometrically growing population.
While saying Nigeria needs data for the future, the don advised the Nigerian governments to address health care system problems holistically.
Ogunsola don maintained that for Nigerian health institutions to be ready for the future, it must digitize patient records in an electronic management system.
The University administrator who disclosed that very few countries of the world spend over one percent of their Gross Domestic Product on Research lamented that Nigeria spends less than one percent of her GDP on research.
According to her, government must invest in human capital development rather than in infrastructure saying only a literate populace will develop infrastructure.
In his speech, Vice Chancellor University of Ibadan, Idowu Olayinka,a Professor who was represented by the Provost College of Medicine, Professor Oluwabunmi Olopade-olaopa said that Africa researchers must conduct locally relevant researches that the leapfrog the continent into a global power.
According to him, African scientists are more relevant to solving Africa’s problems.
REMI FEYISIPO, Ibadan.
