Human development is the bedrock of Awolowo’s legacy

Let me begin this brief goodwill message by thanking the organisers for inviting the Awolowo Family to this important lecture, themed ‘Awolowo Legacies in Education and Politics: Enduring Lessons for Contemporary Nigeria’. I can assure you that we do not take your invitation for granted.  I must also congratulate the organisers for keeping faith with, arguably, the most pivotal aspect of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s legacy, that is, Education.

I am aware that my sister, Rev Mrs Omotola Oyediran, used to represent the family at this annual event. Sadly, she left us suddenly a year ago. May I ask everyone to rise to observe a minute’s silence in her memory……May her sweet and gentle soul continue to rest in perfect peace. Amen.

I must specially acknowledge the presence of today’s Distinguished Lecturer, His Excellency Chief Bisi Akande, former Governor of Osun State.

The following quotes from Chief Awolowo reveal, quite clearly, that his vision of education for all was all-embracing. In other words, his vision of the benefits of education went beyond the intellectual attainment of the individual to include social and political stability. I quote,

• ‘Education is that process of physical and mental culture whereby a man’s personality is developed to the fullest’ (Chief Ọbafẹmi Awolọwọ, 1947)
• ‘To educate the children and enlighten the illiterate adults is to lay a solid foundation not only for future social and economic progress but also for political stability.’ (AWO, the autobiography, 1960)
• ‘…at every stage of human development or advancement, the moving spirits are invariably the men of education, science and technology. The more of them a country has, the brighter are its prospects for rapid economic progress, for social justice and for political stability.’ (Chief Ọbafẹmi Awolọwọ, 16th January 1980)

 

The Future

To demonstrate how extraordinarily visionary and prescient Chief Awolowo was, as exemplified by the above quotes, let us consider the following:

Today, we live in a fast-changing world, a knowledge-driven economy. This will increasingly be the case as the future unfolds – a fast-paced world in which oil may well lose so much of its value that failure to plan adequately for alternative sources of revenue is likely to lead to dire consequences.

The following are a couple of self-evident scenarios in support of the strategic role of education in the world as the future unfolds:

1. According to an article published in a news website, Financial Review, in May 2017, titled ‘Petrol Cars Will Vanish in 8 years’, by Stanford Economist, Tony Seba,

‘The entire market for land transport will switch to electrification, leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century… What the cost curve says is that by 2025 all new vehicles will be electric, all new buses, all new cars, all new tractors, all new vans, anything that moves on wheels will be electric, globally,” Mr. Seba said… Oil use for road transport will crash from 8 million barrels a day to 1 million.’

2. ‘Taiwan is a barren rock in a typhoon-laden sea with no natural resources to live off of — it even has to import sand and gravel from China for construction — yet it has the fourth-largest financial reserves in the world. Because rather than digging in the ground and mining whatever comes up, Taiwan has mined its 23 million people, their talent, energy and intelligence — men and women. I always tell my friends in Taiwan: “You’re the luckiest people in the world. How did you get so lucky? You have no oil, no iron ore, no forests, no diamonds, no gold, just a few small deposits of coal and natural gas — and because of that you developed the habits and culture of honing your people’s skills, which turns out to be the most valuable and only truly renewable resource in the world today.

A team from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D., has … come out with a fascinating little study mapping the correlation between performance on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, exam — which every two years tests math, science and reading comprehension skills of 15-year-olds in 65 countries — and the total earnings on natural resources as a percentage of G.D.P. for each participating country. In short, how well do your high school kids do on math compared with how much oil you pump or how many diamonds you dig?

…the numbers say that if you really want to know how a country is going to do in the 21st century, don’t count its oil reserves or gold mines, count its highly effective teachers, involved parents and committed students. “Today’s learning outcomes at school,” says Schleicher, “are a powerful predictor for the wealth and social outcomes that countries will reap in the long run…”

…“in countries with little in the way of natural resources — Finland, Singapore or Japan — education has strong outcomes and a high status, at least in part because the public at large has understood that the country must live by its knowledge and skills and that these depend on the quality of education. … Every parent and child in these countries knows that skills will decide the life chances of the child and nothing else is going to rescue them, so they build a whole culture and education system around it.”

(Excerpts from New York Times, ‘Pass the Books, Hold the Oil’ by Thomas L. Friedman)

In an article by Dr Robert Goldman titled, ‘Our Changing World’, he predicts that the world is moving into what he calls the 4th industrial revolution. He makes several predictions about artificial intelligence, which is already upon us, by the way. Driverless cars have already appeared in Lagos.

It is thought that by 2040, driverless cars will not only be legal in most cities in the world, they will be compulsory in some.

Clearly, then, the future belongs to innovators and digitisation. How can our children hope to compete in such a world? The answer is to update our educational curriculum appropriately and increase our investment, substantially, in the sector.

Elsewhere in the world, the school curricula are already being updated to include training in innovative thinking and problem-solving. Nigerian children must be adequately prepared to cope in a 21st century world where technological innovation will be unleashed at a dizzying pace.

In addition, there is a distinct possibility that in future oil will no longer enjoy its current pride of place in the global economy. The consequences of this on a barely literate, unprepared and largely unskilled populace in Nigeria will only be ameliorated by our commitment, from now, to human development. That is the bedrock of the Awo legacy.

I congratulate the organisers, once again, and I wish you a successful outing.

I thank you all for your attention.

(Being goodwill message delivered at the Obafemi Awolowo Free Education Order Lecture 2021 edition, by Ambassador Dr O. Awolọwọ Dosumu on 21 October, 2021)

S FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

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