The Vice President of Nigeria, Kashim Shettima, has officially launched the National Asset Restoration Programme by the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), targeting the repurposing of “tens of thousands of abandoned public assets and machinery” nationwide.

This was disclosed in a statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Communications (Office of the Vice President), Stanley Nkwocha, on Sunday.

The launch took place at the Borno State Agricultural Mechanisation (BOSAMA) Farm Centre in Maiduguri, in the presence of dignitaries including the Governor of Borno State, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum; Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari; and Executive Vice Chairman of NASENI, Mr. Khalil Suleiman Halilu.

“The programme aims to restore and repurpose tens of thousands of abandoned public assets and machinery nationwide, in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration’s vision to boost industrial productivity and agricultural output,” the statement partly reads.

Speaking at the launch ceremony, as monitored by Naijaonpoint on NTA, Shettima said that for too long, Nigeria has been profiled as a nation with poor maintenance culture, with this dysfunction cutting across both the private and public sectors.

“Enough of investing our scarce resources in ideas and projects that get abandoned halfway through. Enough of allowing our critical assets to lie in waste while we budget year after year for the problems they were procured to solve.

“This initiative, the NASENI Asset Restoration Programme, is a response to our cross-generational dilemma about what to do with abandoned and poorly maintained assets of the nation, of the people,” he said.

He highlighted that data at the federal government’s disposal shows that Nigeria currently holds over 26,000 units of broken-down but serviceable heavy-duty equipment, and nearly 500,000 component scraps that can be restored or repurposed.

“This contrasts with the stark reality that we have only 7,000 to 12,000 functional tractors in a country that needs 2.4 million tractor units to meet food production goals over the next decade,” he added.

According to him, these figures are a reminder of what must be done and a reason to have a national inventory of value waiting to be unlocked.

He commended NASENI, through the Asset Restoration Programme, for stepping forward with these brilliant ideas to mitigate a national tragedy through the repurposing of abandoned assets.

“Beyond this promise to repurpose hardware, NASENI has shown a great capacity to serve as a national lab centre for technology transfer, homegrown engineering, and adaptive innovation. This is why we must support them.

“We have seen NASENI at work, playing critical roles in our interventions in compressed natural gas (CNG) retrofitting, renewable energy technologies, and agricultural mechanisation.

“We are reminded more than ever that we can’t create durable Nigerian solutions to Nigerian problems unless we localise global technologies, and relevant agencies must be supported to secure a stable nation and a promising future,” he said.

“You are the other half of the work, because if we restore these vital assets, we must all protect them.

“These machines, these tools, and these technologies are the property of each of you, of each Nigerian,” he said.

He urged Nigerians to see the repurposed assets and others underway as a collective national inheritance.