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Former Ondo Governor, Dr Olisegun Mimiko on Thursday, charged Nigerians to make positive gains of the propensity to migrate to deliberately create new opportunities for our teeming youths.
Mimiko who delivered the University of Benin Convocation Lecture titled: “The Poor Also Deserve Education: Our Founding Heroes’ Legacies In Educational Equity and Equality,” also said that the obvious disparity in the standard of education between the Northern and the Southern parts of Nigeria ought to be frontally tackled to bring needed equity and equality in access and opportunities to all.
Obviously referring to the Japa syndrome, Mimiko who said most of the emigrants are propelled by lost of trust and confidence in the polity, added that many who fortunately make it to greener pastures have become major contributors to the economy, through diaspora remittances that is in the region of over $20 billion annually?
This development he says, can be “a veritable platform on which Nigeria can build, as a basis of strengthening the economy going forward.”
This would however “entail the country investing massively in education, such that with its demographic advantage, which is heavily skewed in favour of younger Nigerians, the country would be able to have enough educated and well-trained hands, to join the task of developing the country, and as export of professional labour.”
In his words, “this is having it right on both ends of the stick; but the emphasis here is on investing in education so massively such that at any time, the country would have an abundance of well-educated labour, from which local developmental initiatives could draw and be driven, and the needs for export of educated labour from the country would be met.”
Mimiko who started his lecture positing that “the poor, now more than ever before, deserve education,” said governments at all levels must pay attention to education such that the less privileged will not be left behind.
The former Ondo Governor also posited that the structure of Nigeria, which concentrates too much power in the centre and deprives the federating units needed power and resources cannot but impede desired growth and development. He then reiterated his call for another look at reworking the constitution of the Federal Republic.
In her opening remarks, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Lilian Salami, said the University of Benin has continued to build on her successes and would not rest on her oars.
She said the journey on University of Benin this past 54 years has been marked with monumental achievements adding that the university has fulfilled the goals and aspirations of her founding fathers.
She added that the lecture will be useful to all stakeholders in the education sector as well as policy makers.
