Adversity is SURELY the mother of inventions and… the ORACLE is Two! - Ik Muo, PhD.

 

Prof Olatunde &the OOU anti-Coro syrup

One of the elementary adages we learnt early in life is that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. This is self-evident and it has been proved true throughout human history and experience. During the Biafran war of independence, we learnt how to extend the shelf-life of batteries so that we could listen to Oko-Okoo Ndem, Onwuzuligbo Umezulike et al from Radio Biafra, which most of the time, operated the guerrilla-broadcast model. We learnt that we could eat cocoa-yam  and cassava leaves and discovered new ways of preparing and preserving them. We learnt how to extract salt for the salty stockfish, which we ordinarily never touched. Biafra was able to refine its own oil, some in secondary school compounds, manufacture its arms and ammunitions, including the famed ogbunigwe (the real weapon of mass-destruction), while Biafran recruits practiced the art of warfare and weapon-handling with bludgeons! The real name for necessity is adversity.

 Beyond the Biafran war, we have had seasons of adversity in this country:  during SAP era, the  June 12 riots, which led to oso-Abiola,( fleeing from the Abiola Crises) and even, the security challenge, which continues to intensify by the day and which has transfigured from a North-East affair to a National challenge. But the Coro-adversity is indescribable, overwhelming and global. Everywhere was subjected to the triple locks( Lock-up, lock-down, lock in); health systems were overwhelmed, including those of Europe and America, our people who  went overseas to buy ice-cream had to stay at home and many of them were treated in our local hospitals, which  have deteriorated from ‘mere consulting clinics’ to mortuaries. Our  big men also could not show off their wealth as there were no avenues  and occasions for sinful ostentatious displays;  global supply chain was disrupted and the world was in  socio-economic quandary while we lived in  collective fear and uncertainty. I am intentionally using the past-tense because even though the war is not over, we speak and act as if it is over, especially as the jabbing has started and we are now more self-confident that we can overcome the scourge.

True to the above ancient adage, adversity became the mother of inventions. People who lived in morbid fear and paralysis, were able to pull themselves together, put on their thinking caps and went on an invention splurge. I am proud to note that Nigeria has not been left out in these  inventions, both in Nigeria and outside Nigeria. In no special order (though I wish to start at home where charity begins, though it should not end there), here is a roll-call of some of the adversity-propelled inventions. The OOU Research Team produced an anti-Covid syrup that can manage the scourge and boost immunity just like a group of Catholic Priests collaborated with other institutions and experts to produce  another cure, the Pax CVD Plus and the Plateau  Research Team  on Coro which also developed a herbal cure. The Federal Poly, Oko in Anambra state, produced a solar-powered Coro disinfection machine just as their counterparts at Federal Polly Nekede fabricated an automated and manually operated hand-washing and drying machine while in Ife, the OOni Covid-19 Team invented motorized modular fumigators.

       Ooni’s Motorised fumigator          NAF ventilator                     Dalhatu’s Respire-19

At Federal University of Technology, Owerri, two Elect-Elect students, Isaac Uchechukwu and Ifeanyi Ebulue designed a device to prevent us from touching our faces while in Lagos, the LASU Dept of Computer Science developed a Coro self-test App just as some researchers from the Federal University of Technology Akure developed a positive pressure ventilator, which is a variant of mechanical ventilator, while in Bauchi, Engineers from Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University invented automatic ventilators, disinfection chambers and software  apps for screening and treatment of coronavirus and Lassa fever. At individual levels, Engr Ibrahim Aledu  of NSE, Apapa fabricated a respiratory machine while Dr Dayo Olakunlehin, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and founder of LigandCorp invented the D-Box, a cheap, portable, easily deployable, easy to use and rechargeable battery-powered ventilator, which cost $300 while the conventional ones cost in the neighbourhood of $30,000.

Dr Olakunlehin & his D-box

He has just been nominated for the Royal Academy of Engineering Prize Usman Dalhatu, a 200L student of Mechanical Engineering  of ABU  Zaria produced the  Respire-19, an E-Vent automatic ventilator while  Jerry Mallo, a Jos-based fabrication engineer produced a ventilator. Other inventors include Kaduna Poly( Plant to produce medical oxygen from air), Cadnetwork Enterprise(Rapid Trace, an app for contact tracing, physical distance enforcement, crowd control and self testing, National Biotechnology Development Institute( RNASwift extraction kit, which would expand our testing capacity and reduce cost by up to 500%);  Diversay Solutions( Full body disinfection tunnel); Nigerian Defense Academy( Smart Disinfection Chambers),  Nigerian Air Force( Emergency ventilators); Lagos State Government( an educational  radio station), UNN(a contactless digital hand-cleaning machine that uses sensor to monitor body temperature, dispenses hand sanitizer, detergent and water); Glisten International Academy, Abuja(  a robot that can interface between doctors and patients, as well as deliver drugs to patients)  and the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research at Yaba(a molecular test kit). Lets I forget, I also ‘invented’ one small 250-page textbook: Project Writing, Presentation and Defense: A hands-on Approach. It was 100% invented during the Tripple Lock era.

 By the way,12 Nigerian banks earned N133bn from e-payments in the first 9 months of 2020 because  the banks  were locked up and their customers were locked in and even when the doors were opened, many decided to stay safely away. That is also one of the dividends of Coro!

Our scientists have proved that they are equal to the tasks, though I do not know the extent to which governments and our corporate giants are involved.  However, I don’t want what happened to Biafran inventions to happen to these ones. In the spirit of providing solutions, Government should establish a clearing house to track all these inventions, get them refined, tested and up to the market, patronize them intentionally (not accidentally) and support further research in these areas. I don’t want Ministry of Health and  Ministry of Science & Technology to fight over the ownership of these inventions. Our private organizations, including CACOVID should support these inventions as a CSR agenda while some should get involved as strategic investment  University research outputs are funded and commercialized as has been shown  with  vaccines in which Oxford( AstraZeneca)  and Yale (Pfizer)universities and many others have featured permanently. Our own Dr Ogbuagu of Yale is FULLY involved.

However, this is not a Nigeria-only phenomenon; it is global. In faraway Kenya, a 9 year old, Stephen Wamukota developed a wood-based and foot-operated hand washing machine.

Stephen & his wooden invention

Others include  Theis Poly in Senegal (affordable ventilators; $66 apiece); Ghana Tech Lab ( Rapid Test Kit); 12 year old Mizan Rupan-Tompkins from  San Francisco  ( a handle that allows for contact-free interaction with surfaces like doors); Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials(a robot to collect samples); University of Halle-Wittenberg( a gargle test to detect Koro); Victor Osagie( mass production of ventilators that boosted the National Health System in the UK); ABC Displays, Colombia( Cardboard beds which are convertible into coffins which prevents medical staff from touching the corpses); Mahmoud El Komy, Egypt( a remote controlled, human-faced robot, which moves around on wheels; it tests for Coro, performs  echocardiograms & X-rays and displays the results to patients, and tell patients off for not wearing facemasks).

Human-faced robot

Prof. Nadir Arberr, of Tel Aviv also discovered the EXO-CD24 that cured coro patients within 5 days

 

Other matters: The Oracle is Two

The Oracle( muoigbo.blogspot.com)  marks its second anniversary today, 11/3/21.  Within this period, I have written 104 articles, mostly focused on sundry socio-economic issues, including Coro, insecurity, politics, education and entrepreneurship. It is a thing of joy to me that I have been able to keep this blog going for the past two years. More gratifying is the fact that there are people out there, known and unknown,  to me who have invested their time and resources to read these posts. I am grateful. Like all my writings, these articles are aimed at writing history on the go, drawing attention to issues that could be handled better, providing the basis on which the future would be compared with the present (which would soon become the past) and handling VERY SERIOUS issues with doses of humour and satire.

Please, I have a favour to beg of all of you:  kindly let me know if there are ways to improve these offerings or any particular things you have found exciting and particularly useful in these writings. Remember that by reading these offerings, you have contributed immensely to its success, that is if it is a success!.

Thanks, God bless and have a covid-Free month.  

- Ik Muo, PhD. Department of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye, 08033026625