The Vice-Chancellor of the Bowen University, Iwo, Prof. Joshua Ogunwole, has urged universities in the country to return to the era of getting undergraduates engage in intellectual debates.
He said this would prepare them for leadership positions.
Ogunwole said some Nigerians in leadership positions today were a product of these engagements, saying graduates might have very limited solutions to offer towards solving the challenges facing the country if they were not engaged in productive ventures which could help them individually and for humanity.
He said this in his welcome address at the mock conference organised by the university.
He said, “ We started this kind of lecture at Bowen to make sure that our students are well grounded and can contribute to any debate. It is okay to have a good grade, but university students should not just be limited in knowledge their courses alone.
“The future of the country will be brighter if the youth are intellectually engaged in fashioning out solutions to the problems confronting us. They will become useful at home and abroad.”
A former Vice-Chancellor of the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Ondo State, Prof. Femi Mimiko, who delivered the lecture on restructuring said Nigeria needed to be restructured urgently to prevent it from becoming another Somalia.
Mimiko said, “When the 2014 confab was concluded and the report was submitted, President Muhammadu Buhari’ government said it wouldn’t touch it and I recall that I wrote an article asking that the government should set up its own committee to examine the challenges and contradictions and let their own committee recommend the way out.’’
