The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) is marking three years of institutional transformation under its Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Khalil Suleiman Halilu, highlighting reforms, products, projects and strategic partnerships aimed at advancing Nigeria’s industrialisation agenda.
Since assuming office in September 2023, Halilu has repositioned NASENI as Nigeria’s primary technology-transfer and commercialisation agency, in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, with a focus on closing the gap between the country’s research capacity and its industrial output by connecting innovation, infrastructure, manpower, finance, manufacturing and market access.
Speaking on the milestone, Halilu said Nigeria has never lacked ideas or technical talent, but has struggled to translate them into commercially viable products and industries.
He explained that what has often been missing is a connected system capable of identifying promising ideas, developing them, financing them, manufacturing them and taking them to market, adding that closing that gap has defined NASENI’s work over the past three years.
The Director, Information, Protocol and New Media Unit,
NASENI, Olusegun Ayeoyenikan, in a statement on Friday, said the Agency began its transformation by strengthening internal systems and adopting a more accountable, results-driven approach to project implementation.
This included establishing Project Management and Implementation Management Offices, reorienting its budget toward measurable deliverables, strengthening internal audit and reporting systems, digitising key processes, and introducing an Enterprise Resource Planning system.
These reforms have been built around three guiding principles: Creation, Collaboration and Commercialisation, under which NASENI develops technologies suited to national needs, partners with organisations offering expertise, capital and market access, and commercialises viable innovations into products, enterprises and jobs.
To prevent Nigerian innovations from remaining at the prototype stage, NASENI has developed an interconnected pipeline spanning talent discovery, research funding, incubation, commercialisation and market access.
This includes InnovateNaija, which identifies innovators nationwide; the NASENI Innovation Hub, which offers product-development support and investor connections; the Research Commercialisation Grant Programme; and DELT-Her, which supports women in engineering.
In 2025 alone, the Agency awarded ₦229 million to 14 researchers across agriculture, clean energy, healthcare, mobility and digital security, alongside DELTA-2, a Nigeria–Czech Republic applied research and technology transfer programme.
On local manufacturing, NASENI has introduced more than 40 products spanning renewable energy, mobility, agriculture, healthcare, information technology and clean cooking, including solar irrigation pumps, electric tricycles, CNG conversion solutions, smartphones and rapid diagnostic kits.
The Agency is also developing industrial platforms such as the 40-hectare Solar Industrial Park in Gora, Nasarawa State, and working with partners to build domestic capacity for photovoltaic modules, inverters and batteries.
In the mobility sector, NASENI is developing an electric vehicle assembly facility at the Abuja Technology Village, alongside CNG conversion and reverse-engineering centres in Abuja, which it described as complementary pathways toward cheaper and cleaner transportation.
On agriculture, the Agency’s Irrigate Nigeria Project is deploying solar-powered irrigation systems, while its Asset Restoration programme is returning idle tractors to productive use, and a coal-based fertiliser project in Kano is building domestic production capability.
In health and advanced manufacturing, the NASENI–Troment Rapid Diagnostics Factory in Abuja is strengthening local production of medical diagnostics, while the Centre of Excellence for Precision Manufacturing is building capacity for high-accuracy components across aerospace, defence and medical-device industries.
The Agency is also advancing indigenous UAV capability through NASCAV Technologies and a UAV School in Kaduna.
On human capital, NASENI’s Skills Acquisition Centres are training young Nigerians in trades such as electrical installation and solar technology, while DELT-Her, SheFly and FutureMakers are expanding participation among women and young people in engineering and technology.
The Agency has also established more than 50 local and international partnerships, which it said would be measured by the technology transferred and capacity built rather than the number of agreements signed.
Looking ahead, NASENI said its next phase would focus on scaling commercial production, deepening local content, improving standards and certification, and measuring outcomes such as jobs created, import savings generated and private investment mobilised.
Halilu said the real test of success would be whether the Agency’s products are adopted, its factories operate sustainably, and its trainees secure livelihoods, adding that he wants NASENI to be remembered as the institution that helped Nigeria build the capacity to manufacture what it needs.
“The work is still in progress, but the direction is clear,” Halilu said. “Nigeria’s industrial future will be built through capable institutions, skilled people, competitive products and factories that produce. That is the system we are building at NASENI.”
