A former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Chief Olusegun Obasanjo GCFR says Nigeria government requires intense educational awareness to successfully fight and sustain the desired victory against Boko-Haram insurgency.
Chief Obasanjo disclosed this at the 11th Convocation Lecture of the Benson Idahosa University (B.I.U) held on Friday in Benin City.
According to him Boko-Haram insurgency has several factors and can be tackled with the carrot and stick approach and one of these measures is education.
He said the people have been over indoctrinated with wrong beliefs and teachings, stressing that what they need now is sincere and true education. Awareness should be saturated in the airwaves, even in schools’ assembly, morning and afternoon”, he said.
He stated that the North East has the lowest percentage in terms of education standard and stressed the need to promote literacy in that part of the country. He therefore urged federal and states, ministries of education and all agencies of education in that region to re-double their efforts in the monitoring of educational awareness to completely stop the upsurge of insecurity in the North-East, he maintained.
Speaking on the topic entitled “Effective Educational System: A panacea for a successful Societal Development and Transformation”, Chief Obasanjo posited that Nigeria has a large proportion of youths who are unemployed.
“About 50% of our population according to the National Bureau of Statistics is youths and 25% of these youths are unemployed. What this means, is that about twenty-five million of our youths are not employed, the implication of this is that we are all sitting on a keg of gun powder which when exploded can be very dangerous. Our private sector has a lot to do here. Private universities owners should do something to bring about employment of our youths who have become tools in the hands of those who want to use them for unsafe purposes”.
The former Nigeria Head of State further said kidnapping, armed robbery, human trafficking, drugs trafficking and many other vices are all outcome of gross unemployment of youths.
He however maintained that if unemployment is to be remedied, efforts must be made by all a sundry especially the private sector in the generation of sustainable jobs.
Obasanjo said tertiary institutions should reawaken entrepreneur curriculum studies in their courses to make students self employed after graduation,
“Our value system must be reawakened to inculcate the spirit of honesty, discipline, respect for the rule of law and dignity of labour of amongst our youths”.
Former President Obasanjo however advised policies initiators in the educational sector to tailor school curriculum to areas like Information amd Communication Technology as well as skills acquisition that would make graduates self employed.
Other areas he enumerated as panacea to the problem of unemployment include fixing power problem, capacity building for policy implementation especially the teachers and easy access to credit for young graduates seeking to set up small scale businesses among others.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo commended the management and staff of Benson Idahosa University (B.I.U) for the progress made by the institution in the years past, stressing that, the quality of graduates from the institution no doubt are making tremendous contributions to the economy in their various field of studies.
In an interview, the vice-chancellor of the institution, Prof. Ernest B. Izevbigie said that the students have been taught on entrepreneurship skills, that will enable them to be self employed but if they can’t get a job, they should create one and employ others. That is what the institution stands for; he stressed.
About 811 students graduated in the class of 2015 with 86 postgraduate degrees, leaving 785 undergraduates. Out of that, 49 obtained 1st class, 270, 2nd class Upper Division, 414 2nd class 2nd class Lower Division and 50 3rd Class degrees.
Highpoint of the ceremony was the conferment of the “5th change Nigeria Award” on the former President, Chief Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo (GCFR) for his contribution to national transformation in the area of entrepreneurship and job creation.
Dignitaries from all walks of life including the academia attended the ceremony.
Obasanjo
