We Can Resolve Nigeria’s Security Challenges — Osinbajo
Tertiary Institutions Must Justify Existence — Akeredolu
The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) has said access to illegal weaponry by non-state actors and politicisation of means of purchasing weapons have exacerbated security challenges confronting the nation, adding that “local manufacturing of arms by Nigeria is a means of resolving insecurity.”
Speaking, yesterday, at the grand finale of 45th Convocation Ceremony of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, Osinbajo commended Nigerian youths for rising to insecurity challenges by joining companies in Nigeria to manufacture different kinds of weapons.
He described local production of firearms as a means of tackling insurgency in the country. Osinbajo emphasised the need for the Federal Government to be smarter in policing the country, by using smart drones and surveillance equipment.
He said: “Insecurity problem that we are experiencing, the rise of terrorism in some parts of the country, access to illegal weaponry by non-state actors, tell us we must be smarter in policing the country, using smart drones and surveillance equipment.
“The politicisation of our means of purchase of weapons tells us we must manufacture our own arms. Already, some Nigerian companies, led by Profex, a Nigerian company, is already manufacturing APCs and exporting them to several African countries.
“Other companies and government-owned Dicom is manufacturing different types of ammunition. Yes, the challenges are many, but the means to resolve them and the elements are here already. Young Nigerians are rising to the challenges facing the country.”
Also speaking, Ondo State Governor, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, tasked Nigerian tertiary institutions to justify their existence by interrogating issues of existence on the pursuit of happiness.He urged the nation’s leaders to go to the roots of challenges bedeviling the country, so as to proffer solutions to them.
Akeredolu said: “Our citadels of learning must justify their existence. Gigantic buildings do not make a university. The major pre-occupation of any institution of learning should be the constant interrogation of issues of existence in the pursuit of happiness.
“The huge gap in infrastructural development indicts the academia and the government. We must justify the categorisation of our class as thinking beings. We must cast aside unprofitable superstitions in appreciating natural phenomena. Our pontifications must be to advance the course of development in our space. We must be availed of the knowledge to interact with our environment, with a view to deriving maximum benefits accruable therefrom.
“Factors militating against the actualisation of this lofty objective must be identified, with a view to proffering solutions in real terms. Universities are established, primarily, to sustain disquisition into the nature of phenomena, strange and often limiting, stretching the capacity of the inhabitants of any given society. Institutions, which fail to connect with current realities, in their immediate environments, betray the charters upon which their establishment rest.
“We must go to the roots of the noticeable dysfunction, with a view to finding lasting solutions to the perennial problems bedeviling the country,” he added.
Meanwhile, the University conferred Honorary Doctor of Letters on the Ooni of Ile-Ife, Adeyeye Babatünde Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II; and Honorary Doctor of Business Administration on Chief Michael Ade Ojo, the founder of Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin, Ondo State and Chairman, Elizade Group of Companies.
The Guardian
