KEY POINTS
- NASENI is partnering with private firms across solar energy, electronics, healthcare and transport sectors.
- The agency’s first direct strategic investment backs Powerstove Energy to scale output to one million cookstoves.
- NASENI and Portland Gas have converted vehicles at two CNG centers handling up to 2,700 cars monthly.
Nigeria’s National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure has spent years producing research and prototypes that went nowhere. That era, at least by the agency’s own account, is over. Under Executive Vice Chairman Khalil Suleiman Halilu, NASENI is now pushing hard to turn its work into factories, production lines and commercially viable partnerships across six sectors.
The shift is deliberate. Halilu has said repeatedly that NASENI’s ambition is to become Nigeria’s leading innovation and technology transfer agency, not just its best-resourced prototype lab. The partnerships now taking shape reflect that shift in focus.
Electronics, solar, and clean cooking
NASENI’s collaboration with IMOSE Technologies is producing laptops, tablets and desktop computers assembled locally and built for Nigerian conditions, with rugged hardware and extended battery life suited to heat and dust environments. The agency is also working with A-Solar Energy Limited on locally manufactured solar home systems targeting households and small businesses cut off from reliable grid power.
One of the most watched partnerships is NASENI’s direct strategic investment in Powerstove Energy, a Nigerian clean cookstove company. It is the first time NASENI has invested capital directly into a private firm. The goal is to scale Powerstove’s annual output from roughly 100,000 units to more than one million clean cookstoves per year, backed by 10 new assembly factories across the country. Clean cooking technology reduces deforestation, indoor air pollution and carbon emissions tied to firewood and kerosene.
In solar manufacturing, the agency is also partnering with Adeayworld Energy and China’s Zhejiang Sinray Electronics to establish the 40-hectare Gora Solar Industrial Park in Nasarawa State, which will process silicon dioxide into solar cells locally.
Agriculture, healthcare, and transport
In agriculture, NASENI partnered with MECA to restore more than 1,000 broken-down tractors in Borno and Niger states, returning functional equipment to farmers across multiple value chains. Fertiliser manufacturing partnerships with Whitefog Environmental Services and Indonesia’s PT Saputra Global Harvest are targeting local production of liquid and coal fertiliser to reduce dependence on imports.
In healthcare, the agency is establishing the NASENI-TROMENT Biotechnology Facility in Abuja to manufacture rapid diagnostic test kits locally for malaria and HIV. In transport, NASENI partnered with Portland Gas Limited to set up CNG conversion and refueling centers in Abuja. The two facilities at Jabi and Kubwa can convert up to 2,700 vehicles monthly. Portland Gas CEO Folajimi Mohammed called the partnership “a testament of how the government and private sector can leverage expertise, innovation, and creativity.”
Analysts say the full test of NASENI’s industrial push will not come from signing agreements. It will come from functioning factories, growing production lines and Nigeria-made products reaching the market.
