The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, said the strategic partnership with the media on science, technology and innovation (STI) is the key to move the country from a resource-based to a knowledge-based economy.

The minister made this disclosure when the Leadership Newspaper group paid him a courtesy visit in his office on Friday in Abuja.

Accordingly, he disclosed that his ministry is taking practical steps to help move the economy away from commodity-based to knowledge and innovation-driven.

“We are the sixth-largest exporter of crude oil, yet whenever there is a sharp drop in the price of commodities in the International market, it adversely affects the economy,” he said.

Onu emphasised that Nigeria’s enormous natural resources, if properly harnessed, would add value to the economy and be transformed into finished products for export.

He noted that this could help expand the economy through local production and wealth creation.

He further said that the Federal Government had put in place policies that would make the industrialisation process irreversible, as the country had attained certain levels of industrialisation.

The minister stressed the need to bring in STI to facilitate the industrialisation process.

Earlier, the Vice Chairman of the Group, Chief Mike Okpere, told the minister that the purpose of their visit was to leverage on the existing partnership with the ministry.

He said the group also had intent to examine the possibility of publishing weekly the activities of the ministry in Leadership Newspapers.