Former governor of Lagos State and National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, yesterday said the state of the nation was “difficult but encouraging” and required fundamental restructuring of the economy to end widespread joblessness. Speaking during the15th -20th joint convocation of the University of Abuja, he stressed that the campaigning for the restructuring of the country should not be the constant “tinkering and patch-patch” for which the country has been known in the past. Tinubu was conferred with honorary Doctor of Business Administration by the institution alongside former Vice-President in the Second Republic, Dr. Alex Ekwueme with honorary Doctor of Science and a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Alhaji Idris Kutigi, who was conferred with honorary LLD.
Also conferred with honorary degree was another former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Maryam Mukhtar, with Doctor of Letters, while Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, bagged a PhD in Law. According to Tinubu, the APC-led government of President Muhammadu Buhari “has the chance and the mission to better our society and forge a new model for our political economy”. He added: “We have demonstrated the courage and determination to change a non-performing government through a democratic election. This electoral success has brought new challenges. These challenges are numerous and we must brace and confront them. “We dare not rest on the satisfaction of electoral victory alone. We must continue our strive toward democratic governance that can usher in a progressive era of broad prosperity, development, democracy and human dignity for our people.
This is our preoccupation, our desire. “If you ask me to describe the state of the nation, I would say it is a difficult but encouraging one, we are emerging from a period of great moral uncertainty where vice and virtue were too often indistinguishable and too often confused, one for the other.” Tinubu expressed optimism that despite the 16 years of hopelessness foisted on the country by the previous regimes, there was still hope for Nigeria, adding that the best way to rid the country of the mess was by restructuring both politically and economically. “Even though the nation before stood half in the light of progress and half in the darkness of injustice, there is much hope because we now have a government committed to a new era of discipline and prosperity. The journey we have embarked upon will not be easy.
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It requires us all to make sacrifices and persevere until we achieve. “Nigeria needs some fundamental restructuring both politically and economically. Not the constant tinkering and patch-patch we often resort to. We must therefore begin with fundamentally restructuring the economy if we are to rid ourselves of joblessness “Nigeria stands in the corridor between greatness and failure, progress and collapse, hope and despair. Our fate depends on whether we summon the courage to take the bold steps and move in the direction. We must turn our present challenges into opportunities for the re-engineering of our nation’s economic challenges. The university and our educational system have a role to play here”, Tinubu stated. Emphasising on the need for the country to return to the agricultural revolution to check rising costs and too little income accruing to farmers, he disclosed that, “Agriculture remains a key pillar in our development.
We must return to the days when Nigeria had surplus and exported food. “Now we import too much food for our own good and security. Our small farmers sink under the reality of rising costs and too little income from the crops they raise. Moreover, we annually lose arable land to desert encroachment. “I believe the current administration under President Muhammadu Buhari has set its priorities right in this regard. Our farmers will once be proud again. We believe farmers need to earn a sufficient enough income that will bring prosperity back to their families.
They must be encouraged and supported. “As a progressive government, we have as one of our top priorities, the lifting of 20 per cent of Nigerians out of poverty within the first four years of our administration. To happen, the state must be a catalyst for job creation and economic development that touches all the people not just a narrow growth that benefits a small number. We shall do this by implementing a national industrial policy linked to a national infrastructural plan and a national employment strategy.” President Buhari, represented by the Director, Tertiary Education in the Federal Ministry of Education, Hajia Abdullahi Hindatu, expressed concern about the poor academic staff in Nigerian universities, saying they should be encouraged to obtain Ph.D before venturing into academics. According to him, the country could boast of adequate facilities including the Tertiary Education Trust Fund and Needs Assessment Presidential Revitalisation Fund to make them more relevant in the society.
The President said the prevailing economic realities in the country should also make the academics to develop cost effective solutions for the private and public sectors to move the country out of its predicaments. The institution graduated over 25,000 students in various disciplines, spanning social sciences, arts, engineering education, among others. With only eight First-Class degree holders within the six years period covering the convocation, 2,324 persons bagged Second-Class Upper Division, 11,180 got Second-Class Lower Division while 6,647 bagged Third-Class and 836 students came out with Pass degrees. In his address, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Michael Adikwu, advised the graduates not to waste time and resources looking for white-collar jobs as the harsh economy had eroded such prospects
