Khalil Suleiman Halilu: The Visionary Driving Tech, R&D, Industrialisation at NASENI
A year ago, precisely on September 1, 2023, Khalil Suleiman Halilu was named by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the 6th Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Nigeria’s leading public sector organisation for technology and industrialisation. While priotising staff welfare, Victoria Ojiako writes that in the past one year, the entrepreneur, technology enthusiast, and visionary, brought a mix of deep private sector experience and working knowledge of the public sector, amassed from delivering high-impact technology and digital solutions across both sectors to bear, with the ‘New NASENI’ rapidly garnering momentum as it propels Nigeria’s bid to join the ranks of the world’s leading industrial and innovation hubs of the 21st century
The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), founded in 1992 to implement Nigeria’s National Science and Technology Policy, and facilitate the development of a national tradition of research and development, got its youngest ever chief executive when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu named Khalil Suleiman Halilu as its 6th Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) on September 1, 2023.
In its three decades of existence, NASENI has strived to implement its founding mandates, and keep up with a rapidly-evolving world. By the start of its fourth decade, it had become clear that incremental progress would no longer be sufficient for an agency as central to Nigeria’s technological and industrial ambitions as NASENI.
Enter the then 32-year-old Halilu, entrepreneur and technology enthusiast, a visionary roughly the same age as the critical institution the president had handpicked him to lead.
Halilu brought a mix of deep private sector experience and working knowledge of the public sector, amassed from delivering high-impact technology and digital solutions across both sectors. In the private sector, he’d founded two start-ups – ShapShap Technologies Limited, a Nigerian logistics startup focused on the last-mile delivery market, as well as OyaOya, Africa’s first on-demand commodity marketplace – and an innovation incubator, The CANs, the first eco-friendly Technology Hub in West Africa.
In his consulting work, Halilu built and deployed solutions tailored to improve the quality of government-citizen engagement, election monitoring, support for victims of gender-based violence, among others.
A year before he assumed office at NASENI, ShapShap won the ‘Mobility and Smart Cities Innovator’ Prize in one of the biggest business competitions in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, held as part of the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX) in Dubai, UAE.
A combination of these experiences perfectly equipped him to take on the challenging responsibility of running one of the biggest public sector organisations in Nigeria. NASENI operates as a network of 10 ‘Development Institutes’ spread across all six geographical zones in Nigeria.
This structure confers huge potential on the institution to comprehensively transform Nigeria’s innovation landscape through a grassroots approach—a potential that is realisable only under the direction of a leadership that is strategic and intentional.
Fortunately, NASENI has that leadership in place, under Halilu. His youth has proven to be a great asset, allowing him to bring perspectives that are a departure from the norm; combined with a restless energy that is always seeking to reform and reposition.
Over a decade ago, it was this energy that nudged him into entrepreneurship, inspiring ideas like learning deejaying and selling blocks of ice to party organisers, during his days at the University of Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom.
After four years in Hertfordshire, and two degrees – a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, and a Master’s degree in International Business – he returned home to Kano to take up a succession of roles in the decades-old family manufacturing empire. It was in these roles – Factory Manager, Gongoni Company Limited; Marketing Manager, Gongoni Foods; Production Manager, W.J. Bush and Co; Chief Operating Officer, Scirrocco International Limited – that he first honed his skills leading large teams, and managing diverse people and conflicting visions; valuable lessons that have come in very handy at NASENI.
That invaluable learning has inspired him to put “people” at the top of his NASENI To-Do list. NASENI’s Institutes, and its headquarters, are home to hundreds of very talented and capable staff, cutting across the primary mandate of research and development, as well as support functions like administration, finance, communications, and others.
In his inaugural address as EVC/CEO, Halilu very clearly expressed his vision to transform NASENI into a “public sector employer of choice” in Nigeria. This would mean prioritising welfare, training, and working conditions, as well as giving staff the opportunity to contribute actively to shaping the future of NASENI.
Next was to clarify the vision, a mission that has come to be embodied by the phrase, “A New NASENI” – signifying a clean and bold break from the past; complete with new brand elements. A “Strategic Launchpad” was developed, outlining the four Pillars of the re-imagined institution: “Enhance Nigeria’s Manufacturing Capacity; Reduce Nigeria’s Import Bill through R&D; Strategically Reposition NASENI; and Leverage the Comparative Advantages of Nigeria’s 36 States and the FCT.”
And then the three ‘Operating Principles’ of NASENI, to complement the Launchpad: Collaboration, Creation, and Commercialisation. This is a mantra that Halilu seizes every opportunity to reiterate. At a ceremony in December 2023, to mark the signing of an agreement with an Indonesian firm, for the development of a coal-based fertiliser plant in Nigeria, he summarised the linkages between the three principles: “We will forge vital collaborations, like this one, and ensure that they result in the [creation] and marketing of commercial products that will benefit Nigerians and the Nigerian economy.”
Under his watch, NASENI’s collaborations have been substantial, and wide-ranging, covering coal-based fertilisers, lithium-ion battery manufacturing and processing, solar-powered irrigation systems, electric vehicles, computers and mobile phones, motorcycles and tricycles, off-grid solar home systems, solar-mounting racks, UAV assembly plant and training school, tractors, and assistive technology for physically-challenged persons.
A state-of-the-art CNG Engineering, Training and Conversion facility – developed in Abuja, in partnership with Portland Gas – was commissioned by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in May 2024. In all, these various partnerships are valued in excess of 3 billion USD. A total of 35 market-ready products have already emerged in the last 12 months.
Halilu has revived a stalled partnership with NASENI’s counterpart agency in the Czech Republic, to finance and support a range of innovation projects combining expertise and talent from the two countries.
NASENI is also actively supporting the ‘Developing Engineering Leaders Through Her’ (DELT-Her) initiative, which aims to increase the number of Nigerian women in engineering.
Halilu has launched a comprehensive reform of internal processes at NASENI, to promote efficiency and value-for-money; established an Innovation Hub at the NASENI headquarters in Abuja, to seed new ideas and technologies; created ‘HatchBox’, a new initiative to promote STEM among young Nigerians; and recently inaugurated the Agency’s Anti-Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU).
One of the areas that has seen a remarkable expansion in NASENI’s footprint, is security and defence, in line with President Tinubu’s eight-point governing agenda. NASENI is providing technical support to the Nigeria Police Force for the reactivation and revitalisation of moribund vehicles and other operational assets, as well as in the implementation of the newly-launched Nigeria Police Green Initiative (NPGI).
NASENI is also exploring partnerships with the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON), and the Defence Research and Development Bureau (DRDB), to build local defense innovation capabilities.
Halilu believes that peace and security are necessary foundations for technological and industrial development. By supporting Nigeria’s security agencies to deliver on their constitutional mandates, NASENI is contributing to the creation of an enabling environment in which Nigeria’s innovation can be fully unleashed.
The months ahead are going to be even busier at NASENI, at home and abroad. September will bring the 2024 Forum on China–Africa Co-operation (FOCAC)—another opportunity for NASENI to advance ongoing partnerships on that front, in line with China’s new model for engagement with African countries: the China-Africa Cooperation Vision 2035.
There’s also the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), offering new vistas for NASENI to double down on its renewable energy ambitions. On the home front, there are a number of major collaborative projects being finalised by NASENI, some of which will be unveiled before the end of the year.
Looking back, it has been a good year for NASENI – the institution is bolder, more visible and more productive. The next 12 months hold great promise for even bigger accomplishments.
As Halilu marks his first year in office as NASENI’s helmsman, on the first of September 2024, the New NASENI is rapidly garnering momentum as it propels Nigeria’s bid to join the ranks of the world’s leading industrial and innovation hubs of the 21st century.
