 So that's the problem. Hi, Francis, how are you? Fine, fine, fine. Can you hear me? Yeah, greatly, greatly. Really? Yeah, you sound a bit changed. Why? Because it was okay just a while ago. Can you hear me now? We can hear you, you sound great. Is it better? Yes. Yes, Prof, I can hear you very well. Okay. I'd like to welcome you to this webinar on the pathways to maintaining sustainable development goals in Nigeria. You all know the situation. We have found ourselves in the global infant team. It's going to be over. But the reality before us is that we have to move on as people and life goes on. We're going to go as we say. Can you hear me, please? Can you hear me, please? Yes, we can. Yes, we can hear you. Now we can't hear you. I lost signal, so I'll take it all over. I want to welcome all of you first. I hope I can be heard. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Well, I can hear you. It's breaking. Okay. I'd like to welcome you to this webinar. I hope you can hear me. Yes, I'd like to welcome you to this webinar. I hope you can hear me. Yes. Thank you very much. I can also see Pupasso. Hi, Yaka. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. I was trying to talk about... I guess I can remember our members are also connected. So I was trying to talk about the reason for this webinar and it's for us to discuss how we can also in the faculty of us, University of Hibadon. He was for several years the director of those were Gullos, yes, of UDL at the University of Hibadon. He's also the president of Nagyurana Academy of Letters. I know so much about him, but I'm not going to talk about everything this afternoon about him. So we welcome Professor Egbouhari. Yes, I would also like to welcome Dr. Udubanjo of the Nagyurana Academy of Sciences. He's a public health specialist, a man of many years of experience, and he has been leading a number of programs and projects, and he will also be one of our resource persons here this afternoon. On behalf of all of us, I'd like to welcome these two gentlemen and scholars. So I turn it over to Professor Egbouhari. Well, thank you very much. My slides are there. I think you can share the slides. I ask the technical person to come through that for me. I hope for me it's here. Okay. Yeah, thank you for me. Yeah, I am supposed to be talking on achieving the SDG in Nigeria through the humanity. And I really want to approach this from three parts. I have three thoughts in mind. One is I would like to spell out the underlying principles of sustainable development, even though we are familiar with them as people from the humanity. We always tend to begin with some conceptual issues. And part of that, we will look at the SDGs themselves. I was just proud to be just there for because everyone here is familiar with the SDGs. And then, of course, we will delineate some conceptual issues. My focus basically on the conceptual incongruencies and the nuances that can carry that need to be resolved before we start talking about achieving sustainability and achieving the SDGs. We emphasize the need for philosophical and ideological clarity. Then, of course, the need to articulate sustainable development as a national ambition and ideology. Because without doing that, we just between emergency and, of course, spending our time and energy without really having a focus around which everyone can pay attention. Then we will look at the issue of mainstreaming the sustainability into the operational processes. These I will run through that quickly. Then in order to minimize contradictions and confusions in understandings and implementation, I will also look at the whole idea of raising practical problems that will not support sustainability and sustainable development, especially with the context of Nigeria. I would then go ahead to focus on the value of the humanities through the centrality of culture and language to development. The idea that without integrating culture and language, the idea of sustainable development will be a problem because the issues of participation, the issues of access, the issues of inclusion within a multi-cultural and multi-lingual setting becomes very critical problems. They can raise issues that are disturbing. Then, of course, I would then be rolling on the Nigerian context and some of what may be done by open practical suggestions involving policies and practices. That basically is a very good summary, just in case somebody is having an issue later on and cannot follow the presentation that we are highlighting here. The idea of sustainability is stated right here with the imperative of the present and the need for the future generations to have them at the back of our minds. The idea that we must look at, not just as nations or as individuals, but come out and look at a human race, then that gives us a move off to the next issue. I mean, the idea that sustainable development is basically for the future, the present with an outlook of the future in mind. Then the framing principles, which I have, I basically have my own understanding of the framing principles, the preservation and co-signal of life in all its forms, and then the focus on the dignity of the human person. And then, of course, we look at the oneness of the human race, our shared destiny, our shared values, and so on. And then we need to tend and not show the edge as our duty and responsibility to ourselves and the future generations. I think these principles are basically to be found in all cultures if we look very closely. I think we then move on to the next idea, which is the next idea I will need to have in the next slide. We don't need this to focus on this. It's just for us to, when by the time we start looking at solutions, we now focus on these ideas of the SDGs. I just listed them out for there so we can move on without necessarily spending time on this. The whole ideas are all in the public space. But we now start with the conceptual challenges. One still is conceptual challenges on sustainable ideas of progress and modernity. We are dreaming in an era where there is the whole single modernity. The whole concept of the single modernity is problematic, which needs to be resolved in terms of the fact that we are looking for, it creates a linear idea of development, a linear sense of progress. And then which allows, does not allow communities to look at work, which also undermines the genesis solution. And then the equivalent of economic and political models and systems that are also possible for sustainable development, we need to interrogate them and then of course dissect them and find a way to correct some of these things. Then culturally and environmentally supportive models of business. You look at business for instance, the ideas, for instance, of human beings being labor, human beings being resources, in a way, creates a dilemma, puts an idea that creates a transactional interrelationship with human beings. That's why we can exploit them and then we merchandise them as well. Then of course, possession of meaning. There are diversities of possession of meaning, life, being, the cosmos. And the impetus of one or the other, whether we are conscious of it or not, ideologies that are imposed or undermined sustainability and sustainable development. I think then of course, there are amplitude values and mindsets. There are expectation gaps that are created. One of such expectation gaps is here, the idea that production and consumption can be elastic. This itself also exposes a lot of countries with difficult issues of environment and so on. So the generational issues where people believe that every form of failure or every form of difficulty is because there are some limitations that have been imposed by the leadership. Of course, this also has led to the destruction of the general knowledge system where even societies that were once very connected with the environment, like some societies, the city environment as being in a path with the human being in such a way that you have to collaborate with beings. Treats are not just treats. Treats are being. And so by the course of this perception of a certain environment and the relationship of environment to humanity, this environment is treated more with dignity and respect. Whereas when you look at these as resources, which basically have come from a particular ideology of how we live with the environment, there's a prediction of the environment without caution in an unconscionable way, because very easy to do when an environment is not considered as something with life that needs to be protected and respected. The prediction of success and achievement and heroism are all antithetical in the sense that they create a value that is connected, that opposes sustainability in every diverse way. And they are called relationship paradigms that promote competition rather than cooperation. With this in the context of nations that we today have, where we are competing with one another, where individuals are in competition, this then also creates a problem for sustainability. And then of course, the definition of work. I think we can move on and then this to the third conceptual issue, which the practical challenges actually have to do with the transportation of communities, on the resourcing of global wisdom. Basically, we are narrowed down to a particular kind of wisdom. This is not only in terms of the global environment, also in the local environment, we do not see, for instance, that looking at culturally, the culture of any people is a generation of experience. Every language, for instance, is a psychopedia of the people's learning ways and how they have dealt with the environment over ages, how they have overcome problems over ages. In other words, cultures and languages are encoding of wisdom, which actually, if we put together and harness them, we are going to be able to resolve most of the problems that we are facing today. Then the hydrogen of boundaries between people, communication gaps and multi-dimensional linkages. And then we basically are seeing a point where we are sourcing thinking to business. Basically, one of the big tragedies of today is the sourcing of thinking to business, where a lot of what we're doing are not generated by the needs of man in terms of how we understand them with the concept of sustainability. But the consumption, driven by consumption, driven by transactions, and all of these are the same on the whole philosophical foundations and the ideologies that drive sustainability. Of course, there is a wide gap of opportunities. We can then move on also to the second level of practical challenges, which has to do with diminishing fraternity, arising from a political system, arising from ideological system, failure of convergence and mutuality, intolerance of the order, rise of nationalism as we can see today. Did you guys know that experience than COVID-19 to show us, for instance, that this world is not prepared? We talk about the new norm that is coming. We don't talk more about the humbling reality. That we basically are running a world that is only out of time, and that we are running, the culture has to say that it's no longer driven by the idea that man is safe and his environment. We need to take priority over every other thing. So the practical ideologies and philosophies of dominance and control is one of the issues that is becoming a practical challenge for us. The extensive trust deficit of government and leadership and the institutions. And if we talk about the issue of fake news, for instance, and we're talking about the issue of conspiracy theories, people don't look at the fact that there is a serious trust deficit, which undermines even the idea of climate change, the attack on climate change, the idea, for instance, of pushing the ideas of sustainable development. I think we should move on so that we can now move forward to the adaptional challenges, disruptions and perceptual desolations. If we come to the micro level of the individual, technologies are creating challenges for the individuals themselves, not only society, inequality in society, but also more for the individuals who have no time to digest technologies before they change, and also to also situate themselves within technology. What we just see basically is that we are being disrupted. Personal lives are being disrupted. This integrated social and political ideologies are arising. Generational shifts are valued dishonestly. And then of course, violence and population movements. All of these are evidence, for instance, that man is in search of a direction, in search of understanding. And if we want to look at and preserve that understanding, we can see it back if we reconnect with who we are and even reconnect with our environment, we are going to find a lot of solutions to this and his ability to man. So the whole idea of sustainable development is not just about preserving development. It's also sustaining the human life and giving stability to man as a human being and helping him to understand exactly what it means to be human. The structure of local ecology, language and cultural engagement, death and perceptual desolation and displacement are some of the things that the average human being is facing today. Now, let's look at even the question of communication flows and channels. There is a wide cycle of minutes and understandings. And if I may give you the examples from inside, from a lot of from from Nigeria and around, for instance, the number of languages we have, the number of cultures, the dimension competencies that people have in even in the foreign languages, English that we're using, the dimension competencies in local languages. There is no language and cultural enable also due convergence to reach understanding, to have commonalities of meaning. In other words, each one of the 200 million people are of us here, we have our own perception of reality and understandings, but we are moderated by our culture and our language, so that we can reach some level of convergence. But when these heritage are dedicated, then we have wide, wide measures of meaning and understanding. We reduce the cycle to such a way as to personal level and create a lot of crisis within society. This is fundamental, for instance, for sustainability. In other words, framework for a certain communication, in other words, integration and integration of indigenous knowledge systems are also part of it. Poor local language content in what we do is part of it, because language in itself, delivered by technology, has no sentiment. It is the biggest cause of genocide today. In terms of cultural education, when languages are delivered by technology and so on, and when cultural content is delivered to technology, there is no question for accommodation. We simply have over two and over a position of one culture on the globe. Diversity is the way of nature. So when we lose our, and language and culture enable us to see exactly what diversity means and how we have benefited from different views of the world over a period of time, over millions of years of experience. But when this is lost, we diminish the capacity of the human person to be able to get the best out of the system. Out of the problem of competition to our channel is that even the interpretation of science and the population of scientific discoveries to the human population now is becoming a challenge, because we are now having more and more gaps between science and the benefits of science on the people. And then, of course, like I have mentioned somewhere, it is this competition challenge is putting even more problems even to the media itself. Then there is the intervention mindset when we are intervening, which is predatory and opportunistic. And it is so supportive of the sustainability. Now, we need to replace this with a conventional mindset, in which it is rather than just entering into communities and offering them solutions. And of course, then disappearing, we need to build a bottom-up approach where the communities themselves are part of the whole business of interpretation. Everything is about meaning and interpretation. So we need to be able to empower communities to provide the meaning and to provide their interpretation. So then that is up to the next issues. The humanities, I don't need to go into this to such a wide area. It has to do with what it means to be human. Anything that studies what it means to be human. And I just made a list of that. We'll spend time on that. Let's move on to the next slide. The cultural and language are central to sustainable development. Because cultural and language deal with knowledge systems. They deal with ideological currents and movements. They are the basis for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship and their cultural recognition. We are basically shaped by our language. We are shaped by our culture and the organized principles of society provided by culture. And the language and culture are necessary for economic development. And this has been proven in so many ways because of the cultural economy itself. Again, when you disrupt the cultural economy, you create a problem. When you have a problem of inclusion, you create a problem of poverty. When you begin to deal with the desiccated culture, you are creating a problem for adaptation, human adaptation. Language and culture contain the value system. And because they are the basis of power and domination, access and participation. They are the foundation for identities and group membership. Effective healthcare, provision, also underlies our understanding, for instance, of the way societies have handled healthcare. For instance, pandemics are not new to even our society. But we need to be able to aggregate information. Find out exactly how have these been coded in our culture, how have these been coded in our history, how have they been coded in the language, what are the terminology, and so on and so forth. And then of course, scientific and technology development are also founded on the basis of culture. Because science and culture and technology do not exist in abstraction. They exist within a cultural context. Then of course, the quality of education. It has been proven, for instance, that for people to have a good education, they need to be exposed to education in their native, in their mother tongue. And the research has shown this over and over again. So what are the other imperatives for humanistic action? One, the conceptualization of sustainability and sustainability development that is concrete and clear. A vision of state that articulates it with clarity. The governance framework and parameter for measuring progress. The governance architecture that integrates ideas, principles, regulations and reward systems that are congruent. And then an efficient system that maximizes your opportunities. And then of course, ideologies and philosophies of life and environment that is congruent with the sustainability and process for sustainable development. Then that moves us to the next imperative. Look at the decision of the vision through symbols and means that speak to the reality of the grand-getting unit. It works you that aligns with the principles of sustainability. Fundamental principles of culture that are supported. Relationship paradigms that are congruent. Lifestyle that is congruent with sustainable development. Because if your lifestyle is sending a different message, the lifestyle that is supported by the system is sending a different message. As the global system is today. Then of course, you and I will destroy the world before we know it. Socializing institutions that incorporate parameters that are supported. Unfortunately, one of the things that we do basically is that we see work for the times of socializing institutions, influence of institutions without necessarily looking at the nature of the state. We have to look at the nature of the state to know which institutions are dominant in the state. Not we create institutions after the colonial structure. We assume that those institutions are the inflation ones. We create NGOs, CBOs and so on and so forth. But indeed, the parameters that we use in evaluating their influence on society are really way out of the nature of the state. The languages that encode and empower sustainable thinking. What can you talk about sustainability and sustainable development? Would have even the language itself to conceptualize it, to have the world view. Because it is the language that enables us to reduce the ideas in such a frame, in such a system in which we can think about them, rationalize, create, and to now begin to develop the whole society along the line. And then communication standards and systems that entrench it. These are the imperative for the administration. Now, let's go on to interventions closer. Now, what I'm trying to do here basically is that it is impossible for us to look at every area in humanity where interventions can be made and how they can be made. And we should base our interventions on policies and principles. And then of course action, rather than simply making a leap. Now, what I've done basically is look at the culture. We need to do sustainable development matters. Now, one of the things I'm saying is that we can use technology today to do some level of marketing. If we do a sustainability, a sustainability measures, sustainable development measures, where we aggregate all cultural practices within certain kinds of defined parameters that we can look at in terms of cultural parameters that are supportive and that they negate, behavioral activities that are supportive and negate, and find a way to allocate them to certain areas. Let me just give you one concrete example. Suppose we do the protein habits of people all over the country, Nigeria, and we realize that there are certain kinds of wildlife that are consumed in my village both are opposite. They may be like the cane rats. And then there is, and then we have to map everywhere a cane rat is contributed. We have a GIS mapping where all of these things are distributed. We can flag when there's a head crisis and we know that the cause of the do not exist is from cane rats. We can immediately start and flag everywhere we look cane rats are consumed. And we can do this for all, as many, as many, from head issues to language issues to educational and so on and so forth. And then we have ready information before we enter into deep knowledge of causes and effects. That's conceptualizing and adapting the SDGs, articulating a coherent and clear SD vision in collaboration with communities, aligning cultural issues with national vision. What I'm saying here basically is that there are truth in every culture. It is no use in a multicultural place like Nigeria for you to have a national SDG that are undigested, that have not been dissected and owned by societies themselves, where you put all kinds of faith in the, in the bodies and national species and so on. But the people have no clue of what's going on. There's strength in congruent truth and demonstrate of negative truth from communities. Now, we can move on. Now, let's look at specific migrant issues that I begin to round up. You see, people don't understand that we have a there are two major problems in Nigeria today that are affecting certain communities. One is the wide need cycle of movement and understanding as a result of the description of language. The second is the issue of mismanagement of diversity. We have receding lingua franca, the lingua franca are no longer performing as lingua franca. There is a crisis of the language and engagement and language there. We can't go into the division. There is a fossilization of indigenous languages. In which case, indigenous languages are no longer able to perform the functions of the modern man. In other words, you have a language that is about 200 years behind in terms of what the modern man needs to survive. Then the bilingualization of Nigeria. We used to talk about the other language by lingua. We are gradually losing that today. They had the operating rights of Nigerian cuisine and associated archaeology. There's the problem of limited English proficiency, which is also on the many capacity to converge in terms of using the English language. Because almost every community now has the conversion of the English language and the meaning. Because what they do basically is translate it. And so that in itself is creating misunderstanding and creating crisis. Creating suspicion and affecting the governance capacity and so on. Then the growing lot of proficiency has mentioned that. And then I think we can move on to the next slide. I talked about diversity management. The information is there, 250 ethnic groups and over 500 languages, segregated urban settlement partners, internal migrations and violence and resources, growing security and then of course challenges of inclusion. All of these are examples of the fact that we have focused on diversity as a problem, not as a resource. When we see that diversity is the way of nature, we now see diversity as a resource. And when managed properly by people and by their government, we see that first of all we can catalyze good activities. We can minimize poverty because we can disaggregate investment in such a way that every community in itself is thriving. Because we have something to offer. Because what we have to offer are knowledge, capital, knowledge content, which the world is hungry for. So we need to be able to offer this. And it is through good diversity management that we do that. So one of the policies that I will even look at is a policy on diversity management. We don't have a policy on diversity management. And let's move on to the next slide. Yeah, the issue of diminishing productive capacity. People don't understand why it appears that every effort that is made by government is not usually done. It's because we are experiencing a rapid diminishing productive capacity. One is because we are offering education to people in a language that is not read to them. And so we know that education is best delivered even at the basic level in the modern times. In order to bring the reality to the people in the way they can understand it. There is the body of oscillations and the special use of local languages that is also undermining our innovations and creativity. And then because indigenous languages are the foundation of abstract, critical, innovative and creative thinking and productive life. We have a funny idea of science and development. I think it precludes humanity. But the two basic reasons that there are even language problems in mathematics. And we need to be able to understand the connections between creative thinking, productive learning, innovative innovation and culture and language until we are able to integrate that. The truth is that we are not going to be able to leverage on our human capacity in order for us to break the barriers that are before us. Now, one of the things that is very obvious to us now is the poor achievement scientists are at the basic education level. This is related to the use of English information. I have one story I always say that the reason I was very good in mathematics, but at the second level, I left the course of the language problem of the botanical situation. I was asked to 2x plus 3y is equal to what? And I said what is x and y? They say x and y are variables. What is variables? I don't understand what the variable is. It tells me that 1 orange plus 2 banana is equal to what? I said I was thinking of use. How you can get use from orange and banana? And the teacher was thinking of something else. So I was wondering are you going to cross them and put them together and so on. So you can see, there are so many examples of this that I can spend one hour to give you more and more examples of this. I think there was one in game where somebody says 7 minus 3 is equal to 10. 5 plus 5 is equal to 10. The boy now says if everything is equal to 10, then there will be lying in the school. And you have to see that and 7 plus 3 is because you don't understand the basic principle of the addition, which if presented to him in the local language, which he understood, which some of us were supposed to in the primary school, which we attended, do this. We didn't have problem with addition, we didn't have problem with mathematics and so on because it was already it was. So and the point basically is that English is not well adapted to communicate local values and ideologies, while information included in foreign language are not properly digested. So the finality of all this is the lack of confidence associated with use of foreign language. And we need to deal with all of these things as a matter of the national priority. So what are the critical questions? How do we communicate development to the divers and the language groups, religious, rural and global populations, such as Senegal and Patibu? How do we empower them to take advantage of and contribute to local and global knowledge? How do we try to lead the preservation and development of and the utilization of the cultural legacy? Then that leads us to the current movement. So this leads us to action points. These are the points that we need to the distribution, documentation, modernization and transmission of indigenous languages and cultures that will promote use and transmission of local languages, that will integrate local languages and cultural content with information, communication, technology, that will empower us to take pride in their languages and culture, that will foster integration and national consciousness and that will promote national development and global competition. I have written books in these areas, language, business and economic development. And one of the things that we are doing very well of what we criticize is the fact that the cultural industry is probably one of the fastest growing ideas today. Religion, for instance, is an aspect of the cultural industry. Why we feel religion, but we are feeling to also look at the cultural, the investment dimensions, the business dimensions as well as the service and motivational sector, in the motivational industry in the service sector. If we look at it more only strictly within the narrow spiritual sector, we undermine and forget about the economic value of what is going on in the tourism, impact on tourism, local and international as well. So what do we do? Culturally and linguistically sensitive interventions are required, resourcing indigenous wisdom is mandatory. Elevation and awareness and connections to the environment. Unfortunately, because of colonialism, we desecrated our understanding of the environment, of nature. I grew up in a society where you could not advocate around the river, you could not cut down a tree around the river because the trees had their spirit. Now when we look at them as fetish understanding, what the people were trying to do basically is to create a connection with the environment in order for people to dehumanize the environment, so that when you look at the environment as it is being, it is more difficult for us to desecrate and destroy. So the whole ideology of that was totally misunderstood by the colonial matters. An opportunity to do this, we are being revived and returned back to that era that was said to be backward where Africa was supposed to be cool. And I need to raise the information that we are dreaming too much by material understanding of life, success and so on. That in itself creates a fundamental problem to sustainable development because man will live as if the resources of the earth cannot be exhausted. It's a last thing. And that in itself I believe that is an ideology that we have to deal with. We have to mainstream sustainable thinking as a culture. And strengthening sustainable development mindset through curricula and concepts are called all levels of education. That we have to do that in definition. That we incorporate management processes. That we revision concepts and definitions of success and power and the reward system interrogating values of your own. Those issues are very critical. And these are the things that humanity can do through literature, through art, through a reward system. And then identifying culturally relevant positions for integration into interventional frameworks. In every religion, there are elements in every religion that incorporate sustainable thinking. We are not in fact projecting that. We are not looking at them as opportunities for reasons to entrench even within the frameworks of the adherence of those religions, the idea of sustainability and sustainable development. Modeling of theories. The humanity needs to come out now to model theories, economic theories, political theories that are congruent with the demands of sustainable development. We cannot continue to perpetuate the same theories that have taken the earth to weight it and assume that things are going to change by simply carrying out mechanical actions. We have to change demands in order to change the outlook. We change the outlook, we change the environment. To change the environment, we are assuring future. There is defining and disseminating purposes. Finding symbologies and values that align and project, we can project through popular cultural media and modernizing and adapting relevant traditional symbolism through scientific truth and new forms of media. Now, there is a lot of what we call juju and fetish. We can modernize them by through scientific truth. And this is one of the things that Nadia Academy of Letters is trying to do. When you create, for instance, the technologies, for instance, you convert them and align them with the, for instance, use scientific technology. The whole idea of quantum and time-grooming, for instance, you can understand that also from the cosmogony of many African societies. We see that there is there in our thinking, in the African traditional religions, if we are not afraid to break barriers and boundaries and then find scientific truth because the modern man is a scientific man and a scientific mind. So, let's go on. We have to narrow the type of limits. I think I don't need to waste time on this again. We have to develop frameworks for harnessing culture. Time is not language to sport, for instance. One way to do that, mapping culture, I have to talk about that. Then I think we cannot move away from there are two critical issues that I, three critical issues that are, and after that I think that developing mandates for higher institutions, which is based on sustainable development goals in specific humanity areas. No higher institution in Nigeria should be left without a specific mandate with benchmark timelines and so on. To give them this mandate in their own area. Within a few years, we cover the role of Nigeria and we change the thinking, we change the perspective. And then of course we have to promote the language and culture business because that's the only way the rural area will benefit from the growing knowledge economy. And then granting free license to rural education so that the people there can be able to get involved in the digital economy. And we can do that without investing in the rural connectivity, internet connectivity. I think, yeah, let's move on until I can handle quickly. So the conclusion, would you see there, the happier people on earth, and who is done the house with youth and by understanding it is established, and by knowledge the rooms are filled with all pressures are presented. And my hope is that if we do all the right things that we need to do, we will share this earth, even on earth as long as possible, and be a happy people with a realistic understanding of what life is about. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Francis. You were right on the nick of time, 143. I know if we give you two more hours you will speak. Thank you so very much. Now we have looked at attaining sustainable development goals from the perspective of humanities. We will turn the mic over to Dr. Banji Odubanjo, the Executive Secretary of Nigeria and the Academy of Science, to let us have the scientific perspective. Over to you, Dr. Odubanjo. Okay, good afternoon sir, good afternoon all. I'm wondering if I can get to share my screen. So I'll do that if you don't mind. Sorry, so that I don't have to start asking to turn the slides and I just share my screen instead. I think family is sharing ease and that means I have to be dependent on you to change them. But okay, so maybe just to save time. Thank you very much, Professor Opola. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you to the network for the privilege of speaking here this afternoon. I consider it a privilege and I thank you very much for the invite. It's good. I'm speaking on leveraging scientific evidence, as you can see, to achieve the SDS in Nigeria. And the correct name is Dr. Odubanjo. Actually, not what is on the screen by my, you know, by my video, as it were, it's a lot that you do, Dr. Odubanjo, really. And as Professor Vocary President, NAL, already for one, I will not be speaking about the X, the Y, or variables, really. I'm basically going to be looking at, you know, these sustainable goals that we have, these 17 goals, they are more or less an offshoot of the initial Millennium Development Goals, which ended in 2015, which were not fully achieved. And then ultimately, people felt, let's set new goals, because they felt that this, the MDGs really prepared the world as policy statements to run towards development. However, there was now a selectivity work with everybody considering that, look, life has so many past. The MDGs were largely health-centered, but people felt there were so many more things that we needed to have goals for as a good, rich policy statement than we all should be driving towards. So there are now 17, somebody complained and said, when there were only eight goals, we couldn't remember them, now they are giving us 17. How do we remember these 17? But it's not about memorizing them, they're always available on the internet. But it's all about sustainability, and it's about development. And basically, I think we can go to the next slide. So basically, what I'll be looking at is how you take science actually to influence policy in that direction of sustainable development. So not really the core science, I'm not talking core science, but I'm looking at where we have the science to policy gap, which is a major issue. I think that there is so much more science than we have seen influence the policies that we have made, whether in formulation or in implementation. So it's within that gap, that science to policy gap that my whole talk this afternoon centers on, and I think that's what fits very much into the topic that I've been asked to speak on, which is how do you use the science to influence it. So basically, what it takes to achieve the SDGs is that we'll need the scientific evidence and advice to support the successful delivery of those goals. And that requires action at many levels. Basically, the job or the crucial role of the scientific community is to provide evidence, expertise and data that will underlie or form the foundation in form and help to monitor the implementation of these 17 goals. So you need the science to help inform where you're going, how to get there and also monitor if you're even getting there. How close are you to the goal? Where you get to the goal? How would you know? So you need science to define some of these parameters and give you the data necessary. However, the process of translating evidence or scientific evidence, if you wish, into policy, whether formulation or implementation is not very straightforward. So basically, I'll be talking all around those issues. So when we look at science and policy making, and the assumption is that when governments have well developed evidence, then they can make very good decisions, which I think is the general wish that we all have. So it's not enough to have a goal. There are many more decisions. So we have those tools, but there are many more policy decisions to be made that will get us towards those goals. So we assume that when the government has evidence, then they can actually make very good decisions. Secondly, we look at it that virtually every challenge that the government has to deal with has a scientific dimension, whether we have really seen that or looked at it and understood that or not, there is a scientific dimension to it. And thirdly, is to realize that science alone does not make policy. So there are many considerations, values, political considerations that go into policy making. Science and policy making are very different cultures. They have different cultures, methods, and philosophies. The nature of interaction is influenced by context, and culture is influenced by history, by relationship between science and society. I'll give you an example. I mean, I have a medical background of what happened, and I'm trying not to talk about COVID outbreak correctly so that that's not quoted or used to the current situation. But again, I was a bit involved with the Ebola outbreak we had in 2014. And for instance, we knew the science was that the bodies, the dead bodies of Ebola patients were actually more infectious than the person when his person is alive. So the bodies, you really don't want people to touch or get near at all, except people who are trained and properly protected. And perhaps even one of the best things you would wish on a good day, for instance, would be permission. But you kind of do those kind of things without the cultural considerations. But it's even the faith of some that as regards burials, how certain rituals that need to be conducted. So a lot of negotiations and interactions have to take place with people and with certain leaders of religion or sex to say, look, this is what is going on. And this is the problem we have. The bodies are going to be worse off than the real people. So how do we deal with it? The science says this, but this is the danger. So how would you advise? What would you suggest? So the nature of interaction is always influenced by many things, including the context, culture, and history. And there's a place of societal values is in science and policy making. So how these interactions will operate then depend on how you frame your intent or how the different parties frame their intent. Again, it's good to talk about what evidence really is because to the politicians and policy makers, it's as wide as tradition anecdotes, indigenous knowledge, belief, or and the formal science. However, the key thing is that science is defined by processes that the aim is to enhance objectivity so that whatever A is, is what B will also see and come to the same conclusion. So we thought about the repeatability of, you know, of scientific studies. If you do something here, somebody should be able to do the same thing and get the same results that you get. It's important to know that there are certain value judgments that also lie within science. So it has one question, what do you want to really study? And also it's important to know that in policy, there's always the question of the sufficiency and the quality of science. And I think the COVID-19 thing really tells us that kind of story where everybody's wondering, you know, okay, they say this now, then they come back tomorrow and say that. So there are always the uses of the sufficiency, the quality and the sufficiency of the evidence that you have. So science advice, which is basically what I'm talking about is that process structures and institutions through which governments and politicians consider science, technology, innovation, information in policy and decision making. So it's that process whereby you can cover that science to policy divide. That's how you can leverage science into in achieving the SDGs, is by what we call science advice. You know, so that's the process, the structures and institutions that help you to take the science into policy making. And in that system, in the science and bicycle system, we have several players in whether individual academics, universities or you talk about the government employed scientists or scientists that exist in many of our agencies or the science academies like the Nigerian Academy of Science, or I mean, even the parliamentary, that's the national assembly for us in Nigeria, you know, in those parliamentary bodies, you have actual research units whose job also, in there also they will also have certain scientists to advise them. Next piece. So the science advice ecosystem is rich and full of several people. So what does it take, you know, to get the global goal by 2013? And I think this is taking us back. I'm sorry. Next slide, please. I think I've dealt with this one. You went backwards. Okay. So basically the rational process of policy making, you know, so we're talking about the fact that it's not usually that straightforward. Yes, you want to move science to policy. And that sounds great. But it's not exactly that straightforward. The rational thing you expect is that you identify a problem and set goals and values and objectives. Then you look at all the different ways of dealing with that problem. Then you look at the consequences of all your alternative options of dealing with solutions. You look at the consequences of those solutions. And then you select the best one, you know, but again, things are not that rational in the real world. You don't get that luxury of going just steadily from phase one to phase two. Okay, carry on. I think for some reason you are going back. Carry on. Sorry. I passed all this. Sorry. Move on. Okay. Good. Back one step. No. Back again. Okay. So I think just to check, go back one slide. Yes. No. Go back one slide again. I think you skipped. Go back again. Sorry. Go back again. I think I, okay. I think I just carried on. So I wanted to share my screen instead so I can control it myself. Okay. So that's the rational process of policy making. Go forward. Please. Hello. Please go forward. Okay. All right. Okay. So let's take off from here. No. Go back please. Sorry. I think you are changing them too fast. Maybe. Okay. Just hold on there. So certain things to note is that policy makers oftentimes have limited flexibility and very often they have to jump at problems to deal with them very quickly. The policy cycle, which is almost like what I just gave you in the rational process, is becoming very short. So those going through identifying problems, the options and all that, you don't have the luxury of much time. It's becoming shorter and shorter and decisions have to be made faster. Very often we find that the relevant science is incomplete. And sometimes a lot of things are bigger. So the answers are not very clear to the policy maker who's looking at it and he's saying, look, I don't have the answer I want. They can't be expected to be the scientific reference. That is that you put these things in journals and all that. And the policy maker is expected to know quite a lot of the medicine understand the mathematics understand the geography understand. So it can be pretty complicated and they can be the ones to interpret all of those things. So they also see the scientific evidence as just one of the inputs. But scientists on the other hand are very good at problem definition. But less so at finding workable, scalable, meaningful solutions or less just called a practical solution. So they can tell you, yes, we have all of these, but after speaking, the policy maker says, okay, what do I do with what he has said? They often approach with a lot of, so it's a lot of scientific talk that is difficult to understand. They fail to consider the many different domains that go into policy formulation. But yet they have a critical role in the policy process. Okay. So, Karim, next slide please. So basically where that ended is to say that policies ready determine just by the evidence, just by the science, even though it should be informed. So there's a rapidly developing field of evidence to policy, I mean evidence informed policymaking. We used to call it evidence based policymaking. But the terminology is changing to evidence informed policymaking in order to highlight the fact that it's not just the scientific evidence that goes into it or many other things. So the many other inputs would include public opinion. So whether we agree with it or not, but these are all inputs that go into policymaking. So public opinion, ideology, the electoral contract. So sometimes you'll get all of the science, but the policymaker decides, I can't do that, just that way because I need to win the next election. If I do it that way, I won't win it. So again, the scientists need to understand that, but there are many issues that go into policymaking, not just the science. So what you want to achieve is ensure that the science is considered in order for the policy to be made properly. So the primary function is ensuring that the policy community understands complex systems. So you want to break down complex issues, complex systems and help the policymaking community to understand what is important. So you're looking at LGGs and all that. It's not enough to plot graphs or come up with modeling and algorithms. You want them to understand what exactly is at stake and exactly what these things mean. You want to break it down to the simplest possible things that you can explain to them. And then you want to help us, I mean, you want to assist in defining the options that may be available based on the science. Okay, next I think you're covering this slide something. So other considerations you understand your audience. You look at the questions and answers. Very often we talk about the demand and supply size. The demand side is with a scientist or an institution like the Academy of Science. And what answers are you bringing? Is that aligned with what the policy makers are looking for? So again, we often talk about researchers who are just publishing to avoid perishing. And yet you're saying, look, whatever research you are doing, should ideally be solving a problem that needs to be solved in the real world. So there should be some kind of communication whereby you know what the policy makers or the decision makers are trying to deal with. And then the research is targeted towards solving those problems or providing answers for that. We also talk about understanding brokerage versus advocacy. So you are there to broker the truth but not particularly there to just take a stance on one particular viewpoint that you would not let go of. And we should have balanced sentences of issues. You should be able to analyze stakeholders. Sorry, go back please. Okay, so let's talk about the heart of science advice. Like I said, and three principal things I pick up on is one trust. So in order to get that done, okay, so let me see. Can I share my own screen? Sorry, I think the slide is gone. Okay, so in the heart of science advice, three principal things. This but the scientist or the player in that ecosystem needs to know is that there is a need to build trust with the different audiences, there's need for humility and like I said, understanding brokerage and not necessarily advocacy among others. Next slide please. And the skill set and out of all the many different skill set, I'll talk about the third one there, which is that we need to know, but in the current world, if we're going to inform things like the SDGs and help achieve them, we must know that it goes beyond, you cannot, you have to have a multidisciplinary approach. Okay, so I'm thankful but the president of the academy of letters is here, but we must have a multidisciplinary approach to solving the problems and to informing the policies that we are faced with. We cannot go by single disciplines alone. It doesn't work. We've had vaccines, for instance, for many diseases for many years, yet we are battling the same diseases for polio is taking us up to 2020 in Nigeria to be declared free of polio. And the issues we are faced with were not the lack of a vaccine, but they were sociocultural issues and barriers that needed to be overcome. So these are things that scientists need to understand that we are looking beyond single disciplines and that it's important to have good communication skills. One of the big issues generally in ensuring that science informs policies such as SDGs is that scientists tend to speak in ways that nobody understands them. And one of the things that we've been trying to do over time is get scientists to begin to communicate clearly, whether in what they write or in their speaking, understand that when they do, in the real world, the people who are listening and who are the policy makers and decision makers may not necessarily be from the same field. So they won't understand what they are saying, except it is simple and clear. And then it becomes implementable. Thank you. Next slide. So looking towards 2030, the communities of research, policy, and practice now focus on questions about improved provision of communication and application of scientific evidence to meet global challenges. In this, the stakes are high and the situation is complicated by intensifying debates at the interface that I've spoken about of science and public policy. And so I'm going to talk about some of those challenges at that interview. So one way of post-trude sentiment. So one of the challenges we're faced with now is the challenge of post-trude sentiment, which includes things like fake news. I know it's popularized by President Donald Trump, but fake news was before it became president, and fake news continues to be. You get many things now that are coming to you and they just need to be double-checked, really double-checked all of the time. Even with COVID-19, for instance, many people get many things circulated to them on WhatsApp and what have you. Some of them written as something that really happened. A bad occasion to ask one or two people, do you know the president? You know, they didn't really happen and they couldn't answer me. And I said, you have to be careful with what you get, you know, because there's a lot of fake news. The intention for writing it and putting it out there is best known to the authors, but it exists. It's real. It's a current challenge for science. There's also the anti-intellectualism and I've had many people now who say, you know, well, I don't care about experts. You know, the experts don't know anything. So the sentiments are coming up and they are challenges for science today. Now also everyone has an opinion because of Google. Everyone is an expert. Everyone has read and Google something and they all can tell you, no, no, that's not what it is, you know, COVID-19 doesn't do that. It does this. You know, you're like, really, when did you become an expert in this? But it's been written on the internet. The ability to differentiate what is right from what is wrong, it doesn't necessarily know. So that does have, for instance, now the challenges of post-normal science as we speak about it, but it doesn't know. So for instance, even WHO had to reverse itself saying that we were going in one direction and says, no, we can't go in that direction anymore because it's probably the basic one was 40, you know. So how much more for the general public to be trying to play some of those roles next slide. So science advisors have to be honest brokers at the end of the day, which is to tell us what is wrong, what is the expert consensus, what the experts generally believe. And also it's important that they tell us what is not wrong, you know, which is what's when people write their studies and then we set paper to put limitation of the study, you know, and that's an important component to be able to say, this is something we really don't know. I've seen the paper done on the current crisis where I had to ask the authors and I said, well, fundamentally what you wrote is based on some, I mean, on data that is fundamentally flawed, you know, and I hope you are like that very much, you know, very strongly that there is a fundamental flaw in the data you are using for this because otherwise, if people perceive any part of it to be untrue, they may trade with the old truth or the remitting of the truth that are there. So I mean, science advisors have to be honest brokers and they also have to among other things be able to tell you options and trade-offs. So basically, I've spoken from two worlds, you know, I've spoken from two worlds from the world of the Nigerian Academy of Science, where I'm executive secretary and the Academy is a science advisor in that sense. And I've also spoken as the chair of the International Network for Domain Science Advice in Africa, which is also a body that helps to build capacity for science advisors. So the Academy was founded in 77, just to give you an example of the Academy as I begin to round off, was founded in 1977 for the two foundational fellows, primarily its activities are advisory activities and also the growth and the development of science. And under those ones, there are different projects and activities that take place. But the primary things that are done advisory activities, that is activities that aim at this science advice that I'm talking about moving science from policy from just the scientific world into policy to ensure it impacts on the real world and ensuring the growth and development of science. Next slide. So I'll give you a few examples as I close. This was 2009, where the Academy did adopt the president of the country as the grand patron of science in a bid to ensure that the president begins to pay more attention to science and indeed ensures that science becomes the driver of the Nigerian development, not just lip service, but in reality. So that's the attempt of this to ensure that science and policy come close together as the president of the Academy, with the president of the country in this picture. Next slide please. So with the federal means of science and technology, for example, which has been a primary agency of our contact with government, NASS, which is the Academy of Science, sits on several boards of the agencies that has a representative sitting on many boards of the agencies of that means of the ministry to help, you know, drive policy and direction of those agencies. And also has many fellows in several leadership positions in many scientific agencies in the country. But in some years, ago, the ministry actually commissioned the Academy as an institution to accredited agencies, about 18 of them at that time, to look at all of them and look whether they are fulfilling or achieving the mission for which they were set up and to recommend any changes if there is any need for that. And that's major to drive the development of the country. In also 2012, the Academy has been involved in developing the national science, technology and innovation policy. And within that policy, something very important was put in for the first time, which is to have a national council on STI with the Academy as a member. And the job is to set direction to coordinate STI in line with national priorities, and also to lead annual reports of achievement of the public STI agencies and facilitate interaction between the research community and government agencies. Next slide, please. So beyond federal level, the Academy actually works at all levels, you know, as long as it can impact on sustainable development in the country, we do what we can. And these are just several examples. One of the ones I will just pick on there is the youth development and reproductive health project, which we work with Nassarawa and the kids in states, you know, for over, I mean, about four years, we were working with them on the grant by Ford Foundation, you know, trying to look at what are the issues with youth development, which includes poverty, which includes unemployment, which includes reproductive health. And like we said, it's looking at the science. So we had to do a baseline study to look at what are the issues and then work with them to develop an action plan with achievable targets, you know, and then help to define how they may do that and drive but as state policies that they could pursue towards solving the problem of the youth in their states. So that's an example, even in the midst of a current challenge of COVID-19, as of 2012, you know, there's a tool that is known as the integrated disease surveillance and response tool, which is basically a tool that ensures that you can detect disease outbreak and respond as quickly as possible. And as far back as 2010 actually was the first meeting we had for 2012, we had one with all the commissioners of health in Nigeria pushing for the strengthening of implementation of these ideas as a tool. Now, it's in doing those kind of things that would have helped us or that has helped us to be ready for a COVID-19 outbreak years later. But if we had been even more effective in implementing some of the things that came out of there would have had even a better response to COVID-19 in Nigeria today. So but again, giving us an example of how we leverage on the science tool to achieve the SDGs. So this would deal with the SDGs on health and good health and well-being. And they were pushing to say, this is a tool that we need to work on and deal with the challenges of implementation. And just I mentioned Nassarawa State earlier, this is the governor or this was the governor of Nassarawa State at the time, given the president of the academy at the time an award for the project implemented in that state. Next slide, please. So it looks like that means internet is stuck. Mr. Chairman, I hope I get this injury done. Okay. All right. So I think, okay, I'll do a small one. And we're all back to that. There's an issue with converting the slides. No problem, no problem. I think I have those two more slides after that. I understand there's only one slide left. Yes. So one to, you know, but basically, yes. So that's the secondary last maybe. Just to show, but we are actually also engaged actively with the SDGs office in Nigeria and the academy is on the National Council on SDGs, which was located in 2017. In conclusion, trying to tie it down for everyone and hope that you understand it. What I've been trying to say is that you, there are no SDGs. You can't get the SDGs achieved without leveraging scientific evidence. And that science advice is that way that we input science into policy making such as an implementation actually, such as the SDGs. And I've spoken about the fact that there are many challenges to science advice. However, it is possible to achieve a culture, which is what we need to get to effectively a culture of evidence informed policy making. So thank you very Thank you very much, Dr. Odubanjo. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? I want to sincerely thank Dr. Odubanjo for giving us the science perspective of how to achieve the sustainable development goals. So to say we have had from the left, we have had from the right. But as far as sustainable development issues are concerned, we don't have left, we don't have right. Maybe we can talk up a little bit to the right and a little bit to the left. So we have about 30 minutes to take questions and to have answers to them. And so we will be inviting our audience. As we speak, we are ready over 70 in the house. So we'll be ready to ask people to ask questions. And then Okay. So yes, we also have questions already. So maybe Femi will, oh, so many of them, nine already, but yes, do we want to take the Baba one or the written ones? Now, can I read this? Professor Boharin, there's a question for you or maybe a comment from Grace Ophoma. Language develops from the social milieu and it has been proved that learners do better if thought in the local language. This is not so in Nigeria. What do you advise parents and school administrators about this challenge to facilitate learning? Yeah, do you want me to take it now or take it with the lower basic education level? You can take the question now, sir. You can take the question now. All right. I think it's very simple. The research out there, I want to thank Dr. Oduba for the presentation and the fact that we have to deal with evidence, not opinion, because I have always said that the opinion of an expert is simply an opinion. So it is the evidence that has credibility and that when we disagree, which we can disagree with the scientists, but the evidence is not available in terms of it. So the whole idea of interpretation is what, where would be deeper, but not the evidence. The evidence today is that we devalue the capacity of our students, of our children, to embrace and engage in work effectively when we use the language. We're not here at some point. Can you come in here, please? Okay, I think it's trying to... I think if I read more questions, there are more questions for me now. Okay. So thank you very much, Professor Bohari. There is another question and I think that's directed to Dr. Oduba, who spoke eloquently on science and policy. And the question is from your experience, do you consider Nigeria having the human capacity and experience in developing policy framework to ensure the intervention proposed after several generations post-colonization? For example, the higher percentage of teachers can hardly instruct in local language, average Nigerian youth, I guess does not know the history of the country or his community. Either of you, either Dr. Oduba and Dr. Professor Bohari, or both of you can address this. Talking about disconnect with language and development. Maybe I'll leave the language side to Professor Bohari, quite obviously. But basically to say that we do have the capacity to develop effective policy back in our development, we have that. What has been real issues, generally has been that we have, after we develop policies, we do not really follow them up. You know, we don't continue to monitor, like I said, I mean, to monitor with data and to ensure the, even the sustainability of the policy first, you know, before the final outcome as it were. So very often we get what we have always got the policies of ourselves. And it's because we have not underpinned all of what we are doing from scratch definition with data. We haven't developed that culture, that data respectful culture that ensures that we have to do things based on evidence. And once we do, we can get that. I think the only thing when you start talking about history, I'm trying to look up that question. Okay. And then the clear one is also the mention of curriculum. And one of the things that need to change also is how to talk about the manoeuvrability of the policy makers. I mentioned that on our speaking. So when you talk about curriculum and how fast the society is evolving, we need to be able to change curriculum that fast and adapt it that fast. So for instance, late last year, we were having a meeting in Lagos with some of the leaders and professors of Bukwala of tertiary institutions, looking at artificial intelligence and big data and how that should be influencing the world today and how curriculum needs to change. And one of the identified barriers is that changing curriculum in Nigeria is such a big deal. It takes so long and so much for you to get curriculum to change. So that flexibility, we need to involve that flexibility. Policy makers need to involve that flexibility to realize that we're dealing with a fast-changing society. Thank you. Professor Ophoma, you've been raising your hand for quite some time. We've just unmuted, you can. You go ahead to speak, ma. Professor Ophoma. Okay. I'm not sure we are hearing very well now. It's a little bit more people now. Maybe I'll just kindly request that you type the questions and then we'll respond. Okay, so there are a few more questions here. I think this is for Professor Ophoma. Someone said that he's been hoping to translate COVID-19 information from English to Yoruba for Wikipedia. And I see it's been a nice and fulfilling experience. But yes, not everyone has access to Wikipedia, especially in rural communities where they divide. So how best do we get local communities involved, even if we have information translated, live with social and physical distances for some more progress for Yoruba? Yeah, okay. The basic thing is that the most viable means to reach rural areas is the radio. So after translating, you should create an audio map and then get them broadcast on radio, or simply provide them in which audio material can be accessed through the mobile phone. So we need to know that the rural communities can reach effectively through the radio media. And that is the most effective way to read them. The Wikipedia is good. There is a kind of, when you put information on the Internet too far in Nigeria because of the very poor rural penetration and the problem of the literacy, whatever you do on Wikipedia or the Internet is rather pendentic. But if you want it to influence behavior in any way, if you must put it in a medium that reaches the people. And then of course, one of the devices that we are not even using a lot here is that we have all these portable radios for about 2,000 to 3,000 that can stick to what you call these storage devices. And they use what you call these cards, you know, that you can memory cards. We also try to start to learn to explore those issues that we can do a lot when we use technology, adaptive technology. Technology must not be looked at only in terms of the work trend. Adaptation is what leads to sustainable technology. So sustainability also is in the whole, in the area of technology. So if you reach by radio, you reach by memory card, you reach by storage devices. Put your information and go to it. The rural people will get it. And these radios are so small. I have one myself which I plan to use for my students. It's just, it's less than, it's about 3,000 Naira. And you put a storage device, you attach it to it. It will play your music. It will play your audio files. So these are issues at the areas where we can actually reach our people with information. We can reach the rural areas with information. We must not always wait for the expensive solution. And if I may, if I may just the idea that we have capacity, we don't have capacity. I want to also agree with Dr. Uduba and George that actually we have capacity. We have capacity in the sense that through technology today with one expert located somewhere in Nigeria, like in Lagos or wherever, you can reach hundreds of thousands of people with quality content where the other individuals themselves can now serve as those who are the, the, the, the, the, the part of quality content. So we must not use that as a, as a reason now why things cannot be done. Things can be done with what we have. Our model of a solution, solving problems, it's not possible. That's one of the big problems we have. We need to use sustainable approaches to problem solutions if we really actually are not looking at it. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much for that, sir. Right. There are two, there are two questions for Dr. Udubanjo. Does Nigeria Academy of Science have catalog of research outputs? If yes, how can one access it? And the second is this, that what is the relationship between ACGs and universal health coverage of 2030? Okay. So the catalog of research outputs, no, we don't have that yet. We kept also looking at other stakeholders who were trying to do the same thing at the point in time that we wanted to do that. But, and we didn't want to duplicate the efforts. However, I think it's become clearer to us that they are not able to do what they said they would do. So it's one of the projects that's in the pipeline now, whereby we'll have that online. And one of the two questions, I mean, one of the critical things to consider is how do you assess, do you need to kind of filter what gets on or not? You know, can people just put in whatever they want? So we're working on it anyway. That's what I'm trying to say. And when it's there, it will be open access. Most, all our products are open access. People can get them to really, whether it's ad copy, whether it's online. And when we do that, also, we expect it to be open access. And everybody can access it. Because that's when it can actually impact the society. You know, the second one is the SDGs and the universal health coverage. Basically, they are more like speaking about the same thing. Universal Health Coverage talks about getting quality health care, making quality health care accessible and affordable to all, you know, equitably. You know, and that's basically your SDG that talks about health and well-being. So they are basically the same. Everybody's using different languages here and there in the policy documents and calling them different. But if you achieve universal health coverage, it's going to be one of the major things, or major steps was achieving good health and well-being. Thank you. Do we have more questions for the floor? I think there's a hand raised. Okay. So someone has asked a question and that's directed to Professor Aguari. This is, was the missing link between policy formulation and implementation in Nigeria. How can we influence health politics among, at least other sectors in Nigeria? Okay. A missing link between policy formulation and implementation. There are two things. I think one, Dr. Odubato has raised is the problem of evidence. The policies are usually sometimes not based on hard evidence, scientific evidence. You know, it doesn't matter what you are dealing with in humanities or not. Evidence, scientific evidence, scientific evidence. The other thing basically is that even when the policies have been crafted in such a way, the implementation is so far from the problem of the implementation time frame. We've discovered that when the policy has been formulated, the period for implementation is so short because of the rapidity of turnover of policy implementation. There are two excessive turnover that we have in the spectrum. And then every new entry into the area wants to start its own phase. And so you don't have, so that means basically that, I think the 10th thing basically that means that we don't have basically the systems, institutions and the processes to ensure that policies are realized. So policies look like simply political strategies. That people devise in order to either win an election or get into a position. So there's no commitment on the part of the operator. And part of the reason why we don't have the commitment also is that they are not by those who are the end users of the policy because they are never involved. It's a top-bottom approach to policy. And if you do that, then of course, you know there will be no ways of monitoring and evaluating and ensuring that there is profitability in the delivery of the policy. Thank you very much. There is another question here if it's confusing, but please ask it about open data and whether they are accessible to use in SDGs. Whether open data is accessible for use in SDGs. Also talking about critical data. I'm wondering whether such a system exists in Nigeria. Okay. There's a question here for Professor Ebruari. Would a child thought in Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa in Nigeria be able to collaborate with other researchers in New Zealand, South America or Asia to solve some of the world's biggest problems? Can such a person operate good globally? And this is against the background of the fact that it's advocated that Nigeria should be taught using indigenous languages. The whole business of being taught in indigenous languages is not mutually exclusive from acquiring an international language. So there is still room for multiculturalism, multi-lingualism, and the more the number of languages that the child acquires, the better for the child. It's been shown scientifically also that it's good for the child's psychological well-being. It's good for his capacity to learn, for his understanding of the world. And what we're saying basically is that there must be a synchrony between the medium of learning and the realities before the child. And that when you see a child in the language that he or she understands, the language of the environment, learning is easier to attain. And that's basically the idea. So the Nigerian policy, for instance, does not say that a child should not learn an international language. So the English is basically already serving that purpose. We can add other languages because another child can speak as many languages as possible. You can add Arabic, you can add French, you can add German. It basically, at infancy, a child can speak as many as four or five languages without any problem at all. It's not a weight at all. It's not a problem at all. It's only for those of us who are already formed in a way that you can break our heads and try to start something, I do not see there. So I think basically what would you do is that we would promote a system where we would hold our children, the young ones, to have as many languages as possible why they are growing up. So in conclusion, yes, it's possible to have an English interaction with people all over the world, with the wife teaching them foreign languages. And the other thing basically is that you will be sure to understand that even the learning of the local languages boosts the capacity to learn international languages, other languages. So in terms of learning of English, Yoruba does not prevent you from learning good English. So it will let Yoruba, it will let make you a better human being, a better learner and then of course a more grounded personality, confident about your reality and about your world. Did you hear me talk to Bando? Yes, I can. I can't hear you any more sir. I can't hear you either. It's breaking sir, now it's off. Hello sir, can you hear me very well sir? What we are saying is, can you hear me sir? Yes, I can. Okay, what we are saying is that Chinese appear to have mastered just their language, Mandarin and yet they compete, they collaborate to advance the frontiers of science. That's so, nothing should stop Nigerians who learn particularly an indigenous language from collaborating. So just comment on that, but I think it's more suitable for Professor Epochari. Commenting on that, I think it's absolutely correct. But I think one of the problems we have had is we don't have self-confidence to look within, to begin to deal with our issues and solve our problems ourselves, which is what the Chinese have done actually, just as much as the Indians, is that they look within to say they have the capacity, like we were saying earlier, to deal with issues. They can borrow knowledge here and there, and that begins with even language and all of that, to say look we can deal with some of these things and solve them ourselves. And if we're good enough, then people will be forced to find a way to collaborate and that is what is happening. So once they can do things and they're producing everything everybody needs, not just that they are able to collaborate with other people, it's a matter of fact that everybody is looking to collaborate with them. So if you pick up a phone, beads, an American phone or whatever, almost half of the components are made in China and all of that. So the capacity they have developed forces the world to collaborate with them. And that is the way we should think about things is that if we can indeed develop ourselves and focus internally to solve problems and that, for example, taking the COVID-19 situation is one of our own positions with the government is to say you need to look inwards. Don't wait for the answers and solutions to come from outside, but you need to look inwards because you have answers within. And this is an equal opportunity disease, for instance, that tells you that everybody is running looking for answers. Nobody had the answer already made. So don't wait for them to bring it. You might as well be the one to provide the answer. And that's the kind of approach you should take to all the issues we're dealing with. Thank you. I think it might work better without the airpiece. Maybe the wire of the airpiece is if you unplug it from the computer completely. No, not yet. Maybe if you unplug it. No, sir. I'm reading your lips just so you know. Thank you very much and good afternoon to everyone of you. Thank you, Proves. Thank you, Doc, for the words that you've given to us this afternoon. They have tried to give us information and serious insight into how we can achieve the SDGs in Nigeria first through the humanities and how we can also use science to do the best we can in Nigeria. Now the first talk we had was actually achieving the SDG in Nigeria through the humanities. And Proves gave us three conceptual issues that he seriously explained. I don't need to go into that. But one basic thing that he told us off was that sustainable development is living with the future in mind. And we all know that humanities deals with the academic disciplines that study human society and culture. Now he also explained to us that sustainable development is sustaining the human life. It also talks about communication, that sustainable development is also communication particularly with our language, which has become actually one of the biggest genocides today. How far have we gone with the languages that we have that we can easily communicate with? He also made it clear to us that language and culture has become a big challenge to sustainability. And knowing fully well from what he told us anyway, the language and culture are the basis of creativity and innovation. And if you look at the sustainable development goals and if you're talking about sustainability or development, you discover that for us to be able to create, for us to be able to bring out innovation, that means we need our languages. That means we need our culture without which it becomes really difficult for us to attain the sustainable development. Again, he said so much about our lifestyle in relation to the importance of sustainable development as regards our nation Nigeria. Well, he emphasized these two major problems, that is the cultural and linguistic diversity. Where he spoke a little bit about the lingua franca that we're supposed to have, for one basic fact we should take away from here is that the culture and language are actually central to sustainable development. And I hope we got that clear. He also made it clear to us that there's some norms that we have. I remember in my own area too, you did not use a broom to sweep on top of a table where someone is eating. They see it as a taboo, but I think there's a scientific basis behind it. The fact that if you use the broom you use and sweep on the floor to sweep the table or clear the table, diseases and all that would be there. So it's high time we began looking at what we have and not to continue in what we're not too sure of that he made so clear. And I want to thank Prof for that enlightenment. In the second part, Doc told us about leveraging scientific evidence to achieve the SDGs in Nigeria. Dr. Odubanjo actually told us that scientific evidence is needed, that we all know that we are sure of. We also need scientific advice in support of the successful delivery of the global goals by 2030. We can run away from that. The truth is that government needs this evidence-based research for their policy formulation and actually they are more likely to make better choices when they use this well-developed evidence. However, he made us to understand that science alone does not make policy. I think I have to stress that that science alone does not make policy. There are many values and political considerations that are involved in policy making. And I think from what Prof said initially, this is where humanity is also coming. We cannot stand alone as scientists. Government cannot stand alone. The humanities also cannot stand alone. So we need each other to achieve sustainable development. We need the scientists to give the science advice into policy and we expect the science advice to be used by government. But one major thing he talked about is that the government don't ask us. There's a kind of fire brigade that comes when they need these ideas or when they need advice or when policies are to be made. So if we as scientists don't have evidence-based research information to give, we may not be available. We may not be able to help out. The development that we're looking for may not be there. So in essence, he's talking about we having development in our minds when we are talking about research. We don't do research in our universities, in our research institutes, just because we want to have promotions. Enough of that he said. We should be able to look at development in any research that we are going into. And I hope that this has actually gone down well with us. Because these policymakers, they have limited bandwidth and of course they want to maneuver their way almost immediately. So we always must be ready. The scientists must be ready. We know that scientists are very good at problem definition. We know they are good in bringing out solutions. But sometimes the way we also bring it or put it across to government becomes an issue. Sometimes there's a little bit of pride in us as scientists, you know, bringing out this information. And of course, policymakers who are politicians may not want to listen to you when you come with that kind of idea. However, in policymaking, policy is rarely determined by what we refer to as the evidence. And this policy makers use this information the way they want it. So we must be ready. We must have what we think it is real, not fake information for them to have a serious evidence on hand to bring out good policies that will help our development. In conclusion, if I will round up with that, the truth from what the speaker said is that there will not be any sustainable developments goals without leveraging unscientific evidence. Secondly, science advice is the imputing of science into policymaking, which to me I feel is very necessary. And government is relying on us, policymakers, they are relying on us and we need to prove our worth. Thank God that when it comes to SDGs or SDSN, members of the SDSN network are mainly from the universities and much is expected from us. Also to achieve the SDGs, like Prof said initially, we need to begin to bring in our culture, to bring in our language, which to us we have seen this afternoon that they are actually central to sustainable development. Do we really want to achieve? Do we really want to make headway? Do we really want to be part of the 2030 agenda fulfilling what the global expects from us? Then we have to look into that knowingfully well that language and culture are the basis of creativity and innovation. Of course then, science, humanities, government should work together to achieve this. Our lifestyle is important in sustainable development. Our lifestyle is absolutely important in sustainable development. And I hope and pray that in all these challenges, in all these issues, in all these science advice and all that we are talking about with policy making, hopefully the universities will come up with something positive for governments to use in policy formulation. Thank you very much Prof. Thank you very much, Doc. We are really very grateful. Thank you and that's all that I have for now. God bless you. Over to you Femi. Did you hear me? As we heard you, but we can't hear the body. Can you hear me now? Yes. So I just want to add to the presentation of our presenters. You've done very well and we hope that in the future we will have a certain innovation. We all need to together interpret this about how it was and if it's about how it was and we can have continuity and humanity to it's done of nothing. Prof, you're off again. Next one please. I don't know. Prof, you are just rounding off your message and greeting everyone. Thank you for participating. So I was thanking Prof. Odubrangio and for the attendees. Thank you for participating in our webinar today. We appreciate you. So thank you everyone. We look forward to seeing you at our next webinar. Thank you Dr. Odubrangio. Thank you Prof. Odubrangio. Bye. Thank you.