By Bose Adelaja
FORMER Vice-Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Professor Bamitale Omole has described quality education as a tool for nation- building.
The former VC who presented a paper at the Founder’s Day/12th Matriculation ceremony of Caleb University, Ikorodu-Itokin Road, Imota, Lagos, said education is the pathway to nation-building as it gives people the required skills to keep themselves out of poverty, thereby providing the gateway to prosperity and creates wealth for the citizens.
In the paper titled: Where have the youths gone? Nigerian youths and nation-building, he said that educated citizens especially youths, bring fame\, wealth and prosperity to a nation. He said: ‘’All these are factors towards the nation-building and education creates awareness of what is right and what is wrong. Education is a vital investment for human, economic and capital development in any nation.”
Obafemi Awolowo University
He admonished Nigerian youths to keep away from drugs and social vices in order to be focused and be useful to the nation. ‘’Today, we find Nigerian youths who are into drugs, social vices like Yahoo Yahoo, Yahoo Plus, Advance Fee fraud, Internet fraud, alcoholism and sexual immorality. The question is: could the youths who are involved in all these vices have good conscience or the moral right to hold the leadership of the country accountable when they are into these nefarious activities?‘’
He admonished them to abstain from these criminal/despicable activities in order to achieve the desired goals, ‘’afterall, it is said that whoever wants to come to equity must come with clean hands.”
He said the youths should be at the forefront of global change and innovation and this can be achieved through quality education.
‘’There is no doubt that the Not Too Young To Run law is a right step in the right direction but it can be argued that this seemingly important legislation might in reality be not more than cosmetic and wool in the eyes of the youth. How for instance will a youth with very great ideas about how to run the country match the billions of naira to which old politicians have access? It is clear that the job of contesting an election in present day Nigeria is too capital-intensive and economically unproductive.”
In his address, the Acting Vice- Chancellor of the university, Professor Nosa Owens-Ihie commended the university for its steadfastness in the past 12 years, adding that the school will continue to be at the forefront of the crusade.
According to him, there is consistent increase in the school’s appraisal from 153 in 2009/2010 to 2634 in 2018/2019, ‘’as at today, we have 8050 new undergraduates and 2011 new Postgraduate students in 916 in PhD Architecture), 105 for Msc and PGD) compared with 787 undergraduate and 151 new Postgraduate students in 2017/2018. This university is emerging and consolidating as the place to be-the destination for those desirous to invest in character and academic excellence,”