Former Education Minister Dr Oby Ezekwesili has urged educated young people in Nigeria to be the Turning Point that would restore Nigeria’s dignity by active participation in the political life of the country based on sound values.

Ezekwesili noted that while research has shown a link between higher education and economic growth among nations, only 4.3% of Nigeria’s youth population has opportunity for higher education compared with 37.5% for Chile, 33.7% for Singapore, 28.2% for Malaysia and 16.5% for Brazil.  “Our lag in tertiary education is quite revealing and could be interpreted as the basis of the competitiveness gap between the same set of countries and Nigeria”, she stated

The former Minister of Solid Minerals spoke Thursday at the Convocation Lecture for the 42nd Convocation ceremonies of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka where she graduated in 1985.  Her paper was on “The wealth and poverty of a nation: who will restore the dignity of Nigeria?”

She stated that Nigeria’s political elite had made “tragic choices” in failure to invest the country’s oil income in renewable assets of people, infrastructure and investments. She identified failure in education as a major constraint to national productivity and development.

Ezekwesili stated, “The crawling progress in tertiary education enrolment since my graduation more than two and half decades ago is therefore one key reason previous peer nations left us behind at the lower rungs of global economic rankings. Economic evidence throughout numerous researches proves that one key variable that determines how fast nations outgrow others is the speed of accumulation of human capital especially through science and technology education.”

Ezekwesili said, “Nigeria is a paradox of the kind of wealth that breeds penury” because of dependence on oil, noting however, that “the trend of Nigeria’s population in poverty since 1980 to 2010 suggests that the more we earned from oil, the larger the population of poor citizens”.  She gave the figures as 17.1million poor citizens in 1980, 34.5million in 1985, 39.2million in 1992, 67.1million in 1996, and 68.7million in 2004 to 112.47million in 2010.

According to the former Vice President of the World Bank (Africa region), “Resource wealth has tragically reduced your nation –my nation-to a mere parable of prodigality. Nothing undignifies nations and their citizens like self-inflicted failure. Our abundance of oil, people and geography should have worked favourably and placed us on the top echelons of the global economic ladder by now.”

The former minister accused the two governments after the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency in which she served of “the squandering of the significant sum of $45billion in foreign reserve account and another $22billion in the Excess Crude Account being direct savings from increased oil earnings that the Obasanjo administration handed over to the successor government in 2007.”

She queried, “Where did all that money go? Where is the accountability for the use of both these resources plus the additional several hundred dollars realized from oil sale by the two administrations that have governed our nation in the last five years? How were these resources applied or more appropriately misapplied? Tragic choices”.

Ezekwesili told the 2013 graduating class that change would come to Nigeria when educated young people participate actively in the political life of the country based on right values. They would restore the dignity of Nigeria, she stated, saying the political foundations of nations is a major determinant of how the nation fares.

“For Nigeria’s dignity to be restored your generation must build a coalition of your entrepreneurial minds that are ready to ask and respond to the question, what does it take for nations to become rich? Throughout economic history , the factors that determine which nations became rich and improved the standard of living of their citizens read like a Dignity Treatise in that they all revolve around the choices that ordinary citizens made in defining the value constructs of their nation”, Ezekwesili charged.

She said the youth have to sort out the political mess of Nigeria, adding that their education and developments in a globalized world are good foundations.

Speaking further on the role of the youth, the Senior Economic Adviser of Africa Economic Policy Development Initiative, Open Society Foundation affirmed, that the youth “are the generation for whom the stakes are highest on how well this nation turns its governance corner. You are the generation that can birth a New Nigeria devoid of all negatives that have inhibited our greatness and one in which every citizen  is mobilised to construct a National Integrity System which is imperative for the building of every decent society”.

The 42nd Convocation ceremonies of the University of Nigeria commenced Thursday with the Convocation Lecture and the Prize and Awards night for distinguished graduands.  First degree holders, numbering 18, 150, would receive their certificates on Friday while higher degrees and honorary awards would be celebrated on Saturday, January 26 and conferred on 1, 730 recipients.

There are 116 First Class Honours recipients and 195 Doctorate degrees. Vice Chancellor of UNN Prof Bartho Okolo disclosed on Monday that the University was rebuilding its intellectual capital by offering employment to 300 First Class Honours graduates over the last three years.

University of Nigeria is the first full-fledged university in Nigeria, founded in Nigeria’s independence year 1960. The 52-year old institution runs diverse programmes in arts and sciences featuring 15 faculties, 105 departments and seven directorates charged with special projects. It has a student body of 40, 000 in four campuses of Nsukka, Enugu, Ituku Ozalla and Aba.

The main campus in Nsukka houses programmes in agriculture, basic and biological sciences, engineering, arts and social sciences while the Enugu campus houses professional courses in management, architecture, law and environmental sciences. The College of Medicine, with a teaching and referral hospital, is located at Ituku-Ozalla, on the outskirts of the Enugu state capital, while the School of Languages is located at Aba, in Abia State. {fcomments on}