President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday said that the era of wasteful spending in Nigerian universities is over.
He therefore counselled managers of the universities to plough back every available fund into teaching, research and productive activities.
President Buhari added that government is optimistic that in the near future the countryโs universities should be self-reliant or be in a position to provide a substantial portion of their needed funds.
The president said this in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, at the 32nd convocation ceremony of the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN).
The president, who was represented by the Deputy Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof Chinedu Mafiana, added that โthe universities have a role to play in the effort at revitalising the economy and building a solid foundation for the nation. As catalyst for change, the universities should not only be producers and disseminators of knowledge, but also creators of wealth.
They should be in the vanguard of re-orientating our people to espouse the ideals of good citizenship. In tune with the laws establishing them, our universities should relate their activities to the social, cultural and economic needs of the people of Nigeria.
โThey are expected through research, to identify the problems and needs of society and find practical solutions within the context of national development. As purveyors of knowledge, universities should be committed to the pursuit of excellence. A technologically productive economy is dependent in great measure on research inputs from the universities. I therefore challenge the universities to give of their best as the nation expects much from you. Government on its part will continue to fund our universities to the limit of its available resources.
โLet me quickly say that our dream to have world-class universities and centres of excellence among the community of nations cannot be realised if our universities open and close their gates to students at every whim. Our Universities must remain focused and committed to their tripartite functions of teaching, research and community service in order to justify the huge government investment on them.
The president assured that Nigeria would soon overcome its current economic recession, saying it is a universal phenomenon.
Said he: โIt is no longer news that our country is passing through a difficult period of economic crises; the economic recession is not peculiar to Nigeria as many countries in the world are facing similar challenges.
โThis socio-economic situation has been brought about by our collective failure as a people, dependency on oil exports to the exclusion of other products, insatiable appetite for foreign goods and services including importation of food, corruption and lack of proper planning for tomorrow. My administration is doing everything possible to restructure the economy and change our ways of doings things.
He said โThese measures include fiscal discipline, formulation and implementation of well thought-out economic policies, diversification of the economy and elimination of all practices inimical to the wellbeing of the country. Government is poised to remould the country into a self-reliant nation where the future of all shall be held secure.
Presenting his graduates for the award of doctoral degree, Dean, Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, UNILORIN Prof. Badmas Olanrewaju Yusuf, said one of the doctoral graduates, Dr Abdulhafeez Adedimeji, died that same morning.
The late Adedimeji who bagged Ph.d degree in Arabic was among the 166 doctoral degree students the university graduated.
Until his death, Adedimeji was a lecturer at the Fountain University, Osogbo, Osun State.
