Poor budgetary allocations bane of Nigeria Space Management

By Musa Wada

Poor budgetary allocations may hampered the National space research and development agency, ( NASRDA) from performing its role optimally, it was learnt.
The NASRDA which began over many years ago as a response to its citizens quest for having a new frontier for its human development which will serve as a catalyst and a stimulant for increased technological advancement and economic innovation which offers a unique platform for effective exploration of natural resources and protection of its environment has however continue to function despite the funding challenges it faced.
A statement entitled, “RE – 24 YEARS AFTER, NIGERIA’S SPACE PROGRAMME LOSES TRACTION DESPITE YEARLY ALLOCATION”, it was posited that despite the funding problem been faced by the Space Agency It cannot be said to be completely loosing traction because many successes have been achieved over the years even though there are a lot of factors militating against the achievements of its sets target as far as space related development are concerned.
The NASRDA), which is made up of 16 other sub agencies to lay a solid foundation for Nigeria’s cyber security and a vibrant digital economy which is at the forefront of progress and development across the country has recorded a lot of successes despite its constraints.
Since the coming into office of its present management led by the director general, Dr Halilu Ahmed Shaba and the mandate given to him by the former President Mohammadu Buhari to change the narrative at the agency he has introduce a lot of reforms which has led to the acknowledgements of Nigeria all over the world as one of the fastest growing space developing countries.
He has succeeded in revising a 25 year road map for the implementation of the national space policy which was approved by the Federal executive council to systematically and pragmatically leapfrog Nigeria to where it wants to be in the committee of space faring countries of the world and recent research by the international space agency attest to this fact as against the misleading report by the authors of the report recently in the guardian newspaper which averred that Nigeria is loosing traction despite increased yearly allocations to its space sector.
One cannot deny the colossal financial muscle required to venture into any meaningful exploration of space – which to a great extent account for why most developing nations like Nigeria are still lagging behind in this.
The space race has really and truly stimulated great interest in developing countries like Nigeria which has over the last 20 years made several note worthy exploits in its quest for space advancement. For example trailing behind the world powers is the indian federation which has the 4th largest space budget in the world injecting over $4.267 billion dollars behind only the U.S.A, China and Russia as the author stated, but comparing it with Nigeria’s N101.744 billion in three years with supporting 14 mini agencies which gulped N15 billion same year is like comparing a mouse with a lion.
Since the coming of the management of NASDRA led by Dr. Halilu Shaba there has been a drop in total allocations to the agency and interestingly over 90% of it budgets are for paying salaries (personnel) which has gulped over 19.9 billion naria while a paltry 1.8 billion naira is for capital while 1.16 billion naira is for overhead though the drop in budgetary provisions to the space sector was attributed to many factors in the country such as the covid-19 epidemic and a drop in the financial earnings in the country it is wrong for the authors to want to attribute our slow progress to the present management or mismanagement of the budgetary provisions to the agency.
As research has shown and this must be noted by all recent advancement in space exploration for the most part can be credited to only a small number of countries even among the industrialized countries. U.S.A, Canada, Russia, Japan, and eleven other countries under the European space agency (ESA) remain the most dominant contributors to the international space stations (ISS) since its debut in 1999 this is because they have the financial muscle required to do it as compared to other African countries like Nigeria who are facing a lot of competing developmental needs. That Nigeria’s dream to launch into space by 2030 does not look any closer to reality is not due to the mismanagement of budgetary provisions to NASDRA by its present leadership but because of the rising cost of space exploration when comparing the naira to the dollar and the payment of staffs which were not put into consideration by the authors of the guardian story which was written in bad faith because Nigeria is facing the same problem with most developing countries which has not been able to launch satellite from its internal site.
Factors such as policy somersaults in the past has also hindered our journey to space greatness but the committed effort of the new management led by Dr. Halilu Shaba armed with a customs blue print is gradually leading Nigeria’s space exploration growth and technological drive and this is there for all to see.
Today investment in satellite and space technology is beginning to have a significant impact and the socioeconomic development of Nigeria and the political, social, technical challenges that has quagmire Nigeria’s efforts to reach the promise land of space advancement and make it a thriving spacefaring country is been overcome by the present management of NASDRA.
Today as far as implementation is concerned Nigeria is making progress and this successes is progressively been noticed with the private sector now taking his pride of place as far as investment in space related activities are concerned thanks to the new innovations brought into place by the new management of NASDRA and it is a fact that if we continue on this part we shall prevail.

Musa Wada, Abuja