Continued from last week
FOR most of you, this graduation ceremony marks the formal ending of your sojourn in the ivory tower. From henceforth, you will go into the world to face the harsh realities of life. Realities made harsher by the present uncertainties and political complications in Nigeria. In the midst of it all, you will have nothing to fear or worry about if you will accept my word for it, and always bear it in mind that ‘the gloom of the world is but a shadow’; and that there is radiance in the darkness, if we could but see. To be able to see this radiance, all you need do is to cultivate the courage to look, and the insight to apprehend the light which shines, at all times and in all places, for those who make Truth the object of their daily pursuit. Your success in your exams is evidence of the fact that you have conscientiously spent the past three or more years in acquiring the tools which are indispensable in the confident search for and discovery of truth in every sphere of human endeavour. To employ these tools effectively, you need, as I have said before, courage and insight.
But you need more. Every searcher after truth must have industry, perseverance, objectivity, honesty, tolerance, and inflexibility in the cause of what he knows to be true. I regard all these as the cardinal attributes of scholarship. They are the attributes of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Copernicus, Darwin, Freud, to mention only a few of those, in the long line of man’s intellectual and spiritual ancestry, who have had the patient endurance, diligently to search for truth, the insight to discover it, the courage to proclaim it to a hostile audience, and the tolerance not only to be charitable to those who disagree violently with them, but also to acknowledge the truth in whatever quarters it may be found.
In the world of scholarship, there is no mutual and self-destructive animosity, such as you find in ordinary life. I am strongly of the opinion, that the world in general, and our own country in particular would fare infinitely better if we all strove to cultivate the attributes of scholarship which I have already enumerated. Ifwe did, there would be no South Vietnam; People’s China would be readily admitted into the UNO; the Arab and the Israeli would live peaceably together as brothers and sisters; and there would be no Biafra nor any cause for it. My special message to you, on this occasion which is memorable and epoch making in the life of everyone of you, is that you should strive, day and night and in all circumstances, to retain and develop the attributes of scholarship the seeds of which have been rigorously and abundantly planted in your minds during the past few years.
I am gratified to be able to say that I have trodden this path before, and that I am still treading it; and I know that there are unnumbered and unforeseen obstacles to be encountered. Obstacles which by their very nature will make it appear that the scholastic and scientific approach to the problems of life is futile, barren and inefficacious. Indeed there will be many knowledgeable and well-meaning people who will tell you that you cannot bring the theoretical and – as they say – impractical approach of scholarship to bear on the practical events of everyday life relating to business, politics, domestic affairs, etc. They will go further and tell you this, with which I have no doubt you are already familiar, that what is sound and good in theory is not always sound and good in practice. But I declare unto you with all the emphasis at my command that if a thing is sound in theory, granting that the application is correct, it-must be good in practice. If not, then you can be sure that, either the theory is in error, or the application of the theory is faulty.
Look through all the disciplines, and you will find indefeasible justification at every turn for this proposition. In any case, in my capacity as one of your preceptors and exemplars, I make bold to invite you to follow my example. At-all material times, I have thus far,….,,:-..in my younger days through trial and-error, ‘and ‘now by the employment of the scientific method-s- striven to base all my actions, both in private and in public, on sound theoretical principles. The measure of success which has attended my efforts should be an encouragement to you to follow my example.
May I before closing-congratulate you most warmly for your successes in your exams. I am sure that’ you are fully aware that passing exams is not an end itself but only a means to an end.
Each of you has an ambition which you nurse, and which you earnestly hope to fulfil. I assure you that nothing, but fear, doubt, and dishonesty, can stand between you and the fulfillment of your ambition; provided you strongly desire the end in view, and are resolved to devote all the resources at your disposal to its attainment.
Shortly before (l left Lagos in the afternoon of last Wednesday, I had consultations with the Commander-in-Chief, Major-General Yakubu Gowon At the close of our discussions, and having been Informed of my impending visit to lfe for this graduation ceremony, he asked me specially to greet you and to wish you the best of luck. He also asked me to express to you, on his behalf and I am doing’ this also on my own behalf-the hope that you will do all in your power, in whichever sphere of life you may be called upon to serve, to work for the continued unity of Nigeria.
If you retain the seeds of scholastic attributes which I have before described, and continually nurture them, it will be an easy thing for you to fulfill the hopes of the Commander-in-Chief and myself by patriotically helping now to restore and in future preserve from violation the heritage of one Nigeria which is now in serious jeopardy.
Once again, I most heartily congratulate all of you, and wish you every success in your future endeavours.
To be continued
and then