.Olubadan, Olugbo, Obada, VC, charge youths on nation-building 

Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has said licensing new universities while existing ones do not have any firm regulatory oversight or significant funding arrangement is criminal.

Olaopa stated this while delivering the 16th convocation lecture and award of postgraduate degrees as well as honorary degrees at Lead City University (LCU), Ibadan.

The lecture had the title: ‘The Renewed Hope Agenda and the Imperative of Repositioning Nigerian Universities’.

The don described the proliferation of universities as a disturbing phenomenon.

The former Federal Permanent Secretary said: ‘’It is Nigeria’s current development incoherence and complacence about the status of education that led us to this present impasse – the fragmentation of the educational fabric in ways that enabled private universities to grow and flourish on the death throes of public universities. This, in itself, is not a bad development, except for two further developments.

‘’One is the disturbing phenomenon of proliferation of universities. The sense that the enlightened public has is that the proliferation of universities, public or private, is unchecked because it has been politicised as is the usual practice with everything significant in Nigerian life. And this ensures that some of these institutions are not sufficiently standard and functional to meet the need for which they were established.

‘’Two, most private universities are established to service the modus operandi of anything private -commercial agenda and profit.”

In his remarks, the university’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. Kabiru Aderemi Adeyemo,  charged the graduates to use their training for the betterment of humanity. The VC disclosed that 553 graduates were conferred with higher degrees – Master’s and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in various fields.

Three prominent Nigerians were given honorary doctorate degrees. They are the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Moshood Lekan Balogun; a former Deputy Governor of Osun State and former Minister of State for Defence, Erelu Olusola Obada; and consultant on World Bank-assisted Agro-Climatic Resilience, Sir Obafemi Oye.

Speaking on behalf of other honourees, Obada appreciated the gesture and called for partnerships among key stakeholders for sustainable development.