Dr Spencer Onuh, the Director, Centre for Satellite Technology Development (CSTD) says Nigeria has been leading in space science and technology in the continent but noted that more needed to be done.


Onuh said this on Wednesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the ongoing CSTD’s annual conference in Abuja.

The conference with the theme: “Space Technology In Nigeria: Indigenisation and Collaboration’’ is expected to feature some space experts around the world to deliberate on the way forward for the country in space technology.

According to him, other nations in the region are into space technology but Nigeria’s achievement still “stands it out but we will not rest on our oars”.

“No country has surpassed Nigeria in space science and technology. In the case of South Africa, they have the pre-apartheid apartheid infrastructure in place; that is all they have.

Nigeria is the only member country in Africa that has made contributions to the African resource management in terms of satellite and the only country in Africa that has a member of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation for International Imaging (DMCii)

NAN reports that Disaster Monitoring Constellation International Imaging (DMCii) is the company that manages images for the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters.

It also sells satellite imaging services under contractual agreements.

” Nigeria is the only African country that can boast and has successfully launched five satellites till date. Three of which are still orbiting, two have been de-orbited because they have completed their lifespan,” he said.

Onuh said that the information, data usage might not be going fully to the last person standing, but that did not mean that the nation had not attained the leadership position.

“It is not a leadership that is resting, it is a leadership that that has given us a spring board to move higher in space science and technology,” he said.

On how the nation’s satellite technology can be further enhanced, the director urged government to develop a data
policy that would ensure that data images captured by Nigerian satellites were used for the nation’s project.

He said that in any bidding process in the country, only data captured by government owned satellites or private owned ones in the country should be acceptable except when they could not capture the required image.

Onuh said that the Federal Government should.......

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