UTILIZING EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: CHALLENGES, PROSPECTS AND STRATEGIES

ABSTRACT

National development is a gauge that determines the level of stability and progress in any nation. In pursuit of national development, nations are adopting emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, Big Data Analytics, Robotics, 5G, IoT, and so on to harness their national potentials. Emerging technologies utilization accelerates the creation of opportunities and scales up socio-economic growth, which translates into national development. Nations like Japan, South Korea, and China amongst others have recorded various successes in utilizing emerging technologies to drive national development. Nigeria has also made some efforts in this regard. However, the efforts are not very sufficient to harness its huge potentials to produce the kind of results seen in most developed countries of the world. This paper x-rays how emerging technologies are utilized for national development. It discusses the challenges, prospects, and strategies of utilizing emerging technologies to enhance national development in Nigeria. The study discovered that the major barriers to emerging technology utilization in Nigeria include low technology education capacity, inadequate infrastructure, low human capacity, and policy inefficiency. While prospects exist given the 5G network deployment plan in Nigeria, the establishment of AI and Robotics Centre in Nigeria among others. The paper recommends that emerging technologies courses should be included in the curricular of the science and technology disciplines of tertiary institutions in Nigeria, in addition to a curricular overhaul of the technology-based courses, while ensuring government concerted effort in developing focused policies to leapfrog the utilization of emerging technologies to accelerate national development in Nigeria.

Keywords: Challenges, Emerging Technologies, National Development, Prospects, Strategies