A professor of political economy and management expert, Patrick Utomi, on Friday, took a critical look at the state of affairs of the nation and concluded that the painful experience in the nation building has greatly betrayed the dream of the founding fathers of Nigeria.
He said failure of character building looms large as one of the reasons the country has failed to claim the promise of Nigeria at independence as exemplified in the era of nationalist struggle during which the world out there imagined the emergence of new powers that would include Nigeria, India and Brazil.
Utomi spoke as the 6th Pre-Convocation Lecturer of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) held at National Universities Commission (NUC), Abuja. He spoke on a topic: “Political Economy of Education: Issues and Challenges of Open and Distance Learning in Nigeria.”
The university would graduate a total 5975 students who have been found worthy in character and in learning across various disciplines from its 8 Faculties a convocation ceremony holding Saturday at the Headquarters, Abuja.
He attributed the current economic crisis the country is facing to failure to plan and effectively manage the nation’s resources by successive administrations in the country.
A two-time presidential candidate in 2007 and 2011, Professor Utomi, lamented that Nigeria has continued to live in denial of the enormity of the trouble it has, insisting that the country is “in a rolling war” as many people now die in crises and violence more than in a proclaimed civil war.
He said: “It is a testament to the loss of character that four decades after, the emerging powers would agglomerate as BRICS-Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa-and Nigeria had fallen out of reckoning.
“The same Nigeria in the time of our founding fathers witnessed a review of the state of higher education under the leadership of Oxford Educator Sir Eric Ashby who reported to Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa that the quality of Higher Education in Nigeria was good as the best in the world. Yet few think of Nigeria today when they list the top 1000 universities in the world,” he said.
He urged the Federal Government to prioritise education and health, saying these must be at the heart of any national development agenda.
Utomi, was quick to add that Nigeria has come to the stage where non-state actors should take over education because the government has failed the country in that regard.
According to him, the goal of university education so central to modernity could be achieved today not only in the traditional university, saying distance learning is critical to broadening access and growing the important human capital factor in how man makes progress in today’s world.
While stressing that open and distance learning should be encouraged as a way of delivering quality university education to the larger population of Nigeria, Utomi took a swipe at the National Universities Commission (NUC), for being “too slow to change” noting the world is changing rapidly and that Nigeria could not afford to wait for only the traditional way of training people.
The Registrar and Chief Executive of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, who was the chairman of the pre-convocation lecture, called on the government agencies, especially the Nigeria Law School and National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to respect the law and stop rejection of graduates of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) that is also a creation of the law in the country.
He also urged NUC to sanction any university that refuses grant admission to products of NOUN for their further studies.
Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Abdalla Uba Adamu, said graduates of NOUN were globally competitive and have been trained in character and learning to contribute maximally to the development of the country.