Don't Be Hopeless About Nigeria's Situations - Ooni To Youths

The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi has urged young people in Nigeria not to give up on their country, stating that the nation will overcome its current problems and emerge stronger and better.

Oba Ogunwusi counselled the young people to use their God-given abilities to build the nation and lift it above its precarious current state.

Additionally, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), the founder of Afe Babalola University, urged youths to work diligently and stop the decline in the nation's educational standards, claiming that no nation advances beyond its ability to educate its youth.

The renowned monarch gave a speech at ABUAD on Friday at the private university's 10th Convocation ceremony held at the campus in Ado Ekiti.

No less than 1,673 graduates received various degrees at the ceremonies, with 121 receiving first-class honours.

The Sheu of Borno, Alhaji Garba El-kanemi, a legal icon named Chief Mike Ozekhome(SAN), and the former governor of Ekiti State, Engr. Segun Oni was also presented with honorary doctorate degrees from the esteemed institution of higher learning.

In his admonition to the graduands, Ooni said: “I want you to go out there and apply the positive knowledge you have garnered here to better your lives and this our nation. There is no other place we can run to.

“Don’t lose hope in our country, be courageous and use your brains and energy to help our governments to develop wherever you find yourselves.

“You are very lucky to have attended ABUAD, a university that combined learning with character.

"You have also learnt one skill or vocation here that you can apply to be employers of labour, rather than job seekers. So, I congratulate all of you and your parents”.

According to Chief Babalola, the university's founder, something good and meritorious can still happen in Nigeria because it is ranked first in Nigeria and 321 globally by Times Higher Education Impact Ranking.

He cautioned the federal and state governments against creating more universities at a time when those that already existed needed adequate funding and infrastructure to deliver high-quality education.

Babalola said: “The future of this country is certainly in private universities. By the time ABUAD was founded in 2009, there were only 33 private universities in Nigeria.

“But between 2009 and now, we have 77 private universities.

"The strict conditions like a conducive learning environment, provision of teaching facilities, structures, laboratories, libraries and qualified personnel with which ABUAD was subjected were no longer there anymore.

“What we have mainly today seem to be constituency projects to satisfy the yearnings of some governors and legislators.

“It is inconceivable that a newly established private university is allowed to run Medicine, Engineering and Law in the first year.

"We should not allow the undue proliferation of private universities to destroy the quality and functional education."

Babalola said that the institution had spent a total of N1,149,500,000 billion to fund scholarships for students and employees, claiming that these were necessary to inspire them to give their all in their contributions to the country.

The Legal Luminary said that the institution had given instruction in agricultural-based professions to roughly 1,000 students in Nigeria and the Republic of Benin and that 894 of them had received start-up facilities to prevent unemployment and associated crimes.