AdminNigeria’s Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo has charged young generation of Nigerians to develop requisite skills, creative ideas and innovations to chart a brighter future for the country while deploying appropriate technology.
Osinbajo said that with proper planning, acquisition of vital skills the young generation can find solutions to local and global challenges.
The vice president who made the assertion while speaking at the 60th anniversary/convocation ceremony of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife in Osun State, told the graduating class that the future belonged to them, urging them to remain focussed while having lofty goals to achieve.
Osinbajo who was the Special Guest of Honour at the convocation ceremony, represented President Muhammadu Buhari as Visitor to the University, while the Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, delivered the Convocation Lecture at the event presided over by the Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Dr. Yahaya Abubakar, as Chancellor of the institution.
The VP stated that the onus now lies on the young generation to tackle the challenges which confront the country and the world generally today.
According to him, “it is big and innovative ideas that will solve those problems. You will have to confront the problems of climate change and a world moving away from fossil fuels, and you will usher in the age of renewable energy and green solutions,” the Vice President told the graduands.
He added that this generation of young Nigerians are equipped and could proffer solutions in the areas of education, agriculture, health care and security.
“Yes,” he continued, “the challenges are huge, but you are well equipped to resolve them; and the evidence is there.
“Since 2016, despite two recessions, young Nigerians have built six unicorns. A unicorn is a company that is valued at over a billion dollars,” he explained.
“You will deal with the issues of feeding, educating, providing healthcare and jobs for the fourth largest population in the world in a few decades. We will need smarter Agric solutions to feed the huge numbers, technology is already helping to crowd-fund agriculture and develop more prolific seedlings.
“You will confront the need to vastly improve our public and clinical healthcare. We must build on the work of the Genomic Centre at Ede, and the local vaccine production efforts going on already and make local drugs for hundreds of millions of Nigerians,” the VP added.
While noting that the education sector needed series of interventions, including designing effective methods especially for millions even outside of classrooms, the VP stated that “there are many young men and women already doing great things using technology to reach children in far flung areas with education.”
The Vice President added that the use of technology and improvement in nationwide policing would further help the country address its security challenges.
“The insecurity problems we are experiencing, the rise of terrorism in several parts of this large country and access to modern weaponry by non-state actors tell us that we must be smarter in policing the country, using smart drones and surveillance equipment. The politicisation of importation of arms tells us that we must manufacture our own arms.
“Already Proforce, led by Ade Ogundeyin, is manufacturing APCs and MRAPS in their factory in Ode Remo and exporting. So are Imperium, and the government-owned DICON (Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria) producing different types of munitions. The future is smart weapons benefiting from A.I. and machine learning,” he said.
Prof Osinbajo also praised the vision of the University’s founders and management in driving the academic excellence for which the Obafemi Awolowo University is known, an institution, which he said has produced great thinkers and leaders throughout its history.
Quoting the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, for whom the university was named after the Osinbajo recalled that “Chief Awolowo, for many years as Chancellor of the University, gave some of the most memorable and consequential lectures on the political economy of Nigeria; and addressed some of its most crucial problems, including the imperative of democracy, national economic development, ideology of governance and national census figures.”
He also observed that OAU was very much ahead of its time when it named its medical faculty, the Faculty of Health Sciences, and its engineering faculty, the Faculty of Technology.
Commending the achievements of several alumni of the university over the years, the VP narrated how US-based Prof Oluyinka Olutoye, an alumnus of the faculty of health sciences gained “global recognition when he led a team of surgeons to successfully take a 23-week-old baby out of her mother’s womb, removed a tumour and returned it to the mother’s womb where the injuries from her operation healed and she continued to grow until she was born, the second time at 36 weeks.”
He also observed that “not surprisingly, the early leaders in tech and tech-enabled businesses were alumni of OAU’s Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering.” Among them he stated include, Segun Ogunsanya, CEO of Airtel Africa, and Karl Toriola, CEO of MTN Nigeria. Prof. Akintayo Akinwande, who teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a globally renowned professor of electrical engineering and computer science.
Most recently, according to the VP, “another alumnus of the Electronics and Electrical engineering department. Miss Funke Opeke, made global investment news when Equinix, the global conglomerate announced that it was acquiring MainOne, the company she founded, for $320 million.”
Continuing on the feats of OAU Alumni, Prof. Osinbajo recalled that he had “the pleasure of meeting with Professors Adesuyi Ajayi and Femi Babalola, both OAU alumni, when they undertook ground breaking research and clinical trials into the potential use of Ivermectin as a prophylactic and cure for COVID-19.”
Other notable OAU alumni and lecturers mentioned in various fields of endeavours included Segun Osoba, Sesan Dipeolu, Toye Olorode, Oladipo Fashina, Segun Adewoye, G.G. Darah, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina (President of the African Development Bank), Dr. Okey Oramah (President of Afrexim Bank) and Prof. Toyin Falola, the distinguished historian now of the University of Texas at Austin, USA.
He also noted OAU’s new generation alumni, including Nairaland’s Seun Osewa; Jobberman’s Olalekan Elude, Ayodeji Adewunmi and Opeyemi Awoyemi, among others.
The VP added that “it was while still teaching here also that Prof. Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. But less well known is the fact that he was also a lecturer at the University of Ife, Ibadan Campus, in the early 1960s.”
The Vice President congratulated the graduands, who were doctoral candidates bagging their Doctors of Philosophy degrees. He also congratulated the two honorary doctorate recipients at the Convocation: the Ooni of Ife, His Imperial Majesty, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, and well-known business tycoon, Chief Michael Ade-Ojo.
According to him, the calibre of honorary graduands at the ceremony was testament to the University’s high standards.
His speech also highlighted the strategic objectives of the National Development Plan 2021-2025 as including establishing a strong foundation for a diversified economy, investing in critical infrastructure, power and broadband, enabling human capital development and improving governance and strengthening security.
Incidentally, the VP also noted that “one of the crafters of the Plan, Ambassador Yemi Dipeolu, the Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters, is also an alumnus of OAU, while his father, Mr. Sesan Dipeolu of blessed memory, was Ife’s first African librarian.”
Prof. Osinbajo said “there is much to show and many stories to tell; stories of the institution itself and many of incredible successes of its alumni; stories of the triumphs of human endeavour, the primacy of ideas, the creative force of the introspective mind and the power of vision.”
Present at the Convocation were eminent Nigerians, government dignitaries, top officials, traditional rulers, academics, staff and students.
At the end of the Convocation, Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Eyitayo Ogunmodede, conducted the VP and other dignitaries around an arts exhibition to commemorate the event.
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