This paper was written and delivered by Dr. Goke
Adegoroye, then permanent secretary, Federal
Ministry of Education on behalf of President Umaru
Musa Yar’Adua in his capacity as Visitor of Obafemi
Awolowo University.
• Continued from Friday, September 26, 2014
AS a former teacher in a tertiary institution myself, I
know that the academic community is populated
largely by sincere, hardworking, committed and self-
sacrificing people and that the ills of the type that I
highlighted above are perpetrated by a few
individuals. But it takes only one little dash of a
wrong ingredient to spoil a whole pot of soup, or, as
they say, “little foxes spoil the vine.”
Recognising the fact that most undergraduates are
still in their impressionable age, have we wondered
how the ills of these few lecturers have influenced
the attitude and values of the graduates that pass
through them and the consequence on the society?
When at convocations representatives of this group
of lecturers end up on the podium, in their capacity
as deans, and make the usual introductory statement
of presenting students who ‘have been found worthy
in learning and character’, are we being honest to
ourselves and our nation? What character could such
a group of lecturers impart to our students? And if I
may put it more bluntly, when will the certificates
and degrees that universities award on the basis of
“having been found worthy in learning and character”
begin to measure up to the highest level of the
content of their intentions?
Your Excellencies, the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor,
Member of the University Senate, Honorary
Graduands, Graduands, Distinguished Guests, Ladies
and Gentlemen; coming to the concluding part of my
address, this is the essence of all that I have tried to
say: The challenges of the 21st century are different
and more complex than what human society has
faced in the entire history of mankind. The results of
the industrial revolution and the pursuit of
abundance from the 18th to the 20th century are
atavistic, manifesting as environmental
consequences and the development challenges that
we currently face. Because they are atavistic we can,
and indeed, we have been able to identify the causes
through accumulated knowledge, and so are able to
fight these challenges.
On the other hand, the challenges of the 21st
Century, which I call the modern evils, do not
present us with easily identifiable enemies to fight,
outside us as individuals. Rather, the consequences
of modern evils lurk behind our intentions or actions,
ready to attack before we notice them. This,
therefore, makes it difficult to fight these ills. For
example, what does society do when someone that
has been trained to fight cyber crime, for one reason
or the other, turns against the system?
This is the nature of the challenges of the 21st
Century, where the legitimacy of human actions are
going to be assessed, not on the basis of
experiences of the past but largely on the basis of
the expected consequences for the future.
Accordingly, a whole range of new integrated
knowledge will be required to address the
sustainability of human society. The time to evolve
this new integrated knowledge is now! This is the
essence of the declaration of 2005-2014 as the
United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development.
The form of education that the world needs in the
21st Century is one that will emphasise the
development of a ‘New Being’ – a whole, total-
packaged human being, whose university training is
based not on discipline alone but on the full
integration and internalisation of human and societal
values and respect for the environment, in a holistic
interface that seeks to achieve justice, equity and
world peace.
For us as a nation, and indeed for Africa, this
truism translates to our ability to recognise our
invaluable cultural heritage as the bedrock of our
education. Judging from the experience of other
stable cultures, I believe that it is in this path that
we can achieve sustainable development in this
increasingly competitive and globalised world. We
must go back to the basics and recognise that our
strength lies in the rich values of our diverse
cultures, which stress the need to take care of the
underprivileged, to respect the elders, shun greed
and promote harmony and peace.
My administration is committed to providing the
necessary support to the academic community to
enable it play its crucial and indispensable role in
this new venture. Only last week the Federal
Executive Council considered that a bill be sent to
the National Assembly (NASS), amending the
Education Trust Fund (ETF) Act, to enable it focus on
tertiary education, with particular emphasis on
universities as originally intended. Now that new
ministers have been sworn-in for the ministry, we
will announce the reconstituted governing councils
for universities and other tertiary institutions of the
Federal Government. Thereafter, I would expect the
universities to swing into action by addressing the
ills that I highlighted earlier. Already, the Minister of
Education has been directed to ensure that the NUC,
supported by the security agencies, fish out and
extricate the bad eggs in our universities.
The next step is to commence an overhaul of our
curriculum to ensure that education is reoriented
towards sustainable development. Even our basic
education policy would have to be revised to
address sustainability through expanded curricula
that include critical thinking skills, skills to organise
and interpret data, ability to analyse issues that
confront communities and ability to make choices
that neither erode the natural resource base nor
impinge on the social equity and justice of
neighbours. There is no doubt that in addition to
improved funding from the government, the
university system still requires considerable
autonomy to enable it take responsibility, not only
for the content and quality of its programmes, but
the mobilisation, channelling and management of the
resources it requires for its growth and development.
This is the only way it can aspire to compete with
world acclaimed universities and be relevant in the
knowledge-driven society of the 21st century.
The Vice-Chancellor, Visiting Vice Chancellors,
Members of the University Senate; as members of
the academic community, to whom the society looks
up for direction, you carry the burden of a moral
responsibility to live by example, in order to be able
to advise the students on the direction of governance
and nation-building. You also have the
responsibility, not only of understanding, but of
putting into practice what you intend to impart into
your students. Sustainable development is anchored
on the principle of societal integration and
acceptance. Esoteric research and paper publication
for the sake of numbers and accelerated promotion
is shallow academic pursuit and runs against the
principles of sustainable development.
I, therefore, charge you to quickly find the missing
link between research publication and societal
development and let your appointments and
promotions committee begin to bridge the gap
between peer review acceptance and societal
relevance and acceptability of the research findings
published in academic journals as basis for the
promotion of your members.
Finally, let the certificates and degrees you award
on the basis of ‘having been found worthy in
learning and character’ live up to the highest level of
the content of their intentions.
We have an urgent task, not only of restoring the
lost glory of our universities, but of overhauling our
entire education system through strategies that will
guarantee our march towards sustainable
development. Arising from the motto, “For Learning
and Culture”, which places on this university a moral
responsibility, and its academic records as one of
the very best in Africa, I am confident that this
university can blaze the trail and mobilise its
counterparts to henceforth produce for our nation,
“Graduates of the 21st Century, the New Beings”, as
true products of an education programmes that are
anchored on learning and character. This is a task for
which we cannot afford to fail.
CONCLUDED
• Culled from Beyond Yours Faithfully by Goke
Adegoroye, Ph.D, 2010.
Comments:
This paper, written and delivered by Dr. Goke
Adegoroye, then Permanent Secretary, Federal
Ministry of Education on behalf of President
Yar’Adua in his capacity as Visitor of the University,
referred to the challenges of the 21st Century as
“modern evils which do not present easily
identifiable enemies to fight but lurk behind
intentions or actions, ready to attack before one
notices, thus making it difficult to fight.”
According to Dr. Adegoroye, “what does society do
when someone that has been trained (with public
funds) to fight cyber crime, for one reason or the
other, turns against the system”?
As for the solution, Dr. Adegoroye said: “The form
of education that the world needs in the 21st
Century is one that will emphasise the development
of a ‘New Being’ – a whole, total-packaged human
being, whose university training is based, not on
discipline alone but, on the full integration and
internalisation of human and societal values and
respect for the environment, in a holistic interface
that seeks to achieve justice, equity and world
peace”.
This address was delivered in 2008, that is: A
whole two years before the first suicide bomb was
exploded on Nigeria during the 2010 Independence
celebrations; four years before Edward Snowden of
the U.S. turned against his country and is now on
‘asylum’ in the custody of the arch rival of his
country; and three years before Boko Haram got out
of control.
Unfortunately, rather than focus on the message,
the nation’s attention was diverted to the needless
controversy of whether or not Adegoroye was
authorised by the President. That Adegoroye was
implementing written directives of the two ministers
who were his direct principal was not enough to
assuage the shadowy adversarial sources of the
controversy. But then, can we now say that, as a
nation, we are addressing the issues of our
education system along the line that Dr. Adegoroye
mapped out in 2008?
Martins Oloja wrote in his Afterword to Beyond
Yours Faithfully, published in 2010:
“…Shadowy adversarial sources were said to be
responsible for the furore that followed the Visitor’s
address he (Dr. Goke Adegoroye) delivered on behalf
of the President at the 36th Obafemi Awolowo
University (OAU) convocation, on 20th December,
2008, which mysteriously snowballed into a national
controversy. What was the issue? Dr. Adegoroye was
‘accused’ of adding value to a colourless annually
recycled address. The 19-page, well-written
president’s address entitled, ‘Revisiting Our
Educational System as a Platform for National
Transformation and Sustainable Development’, would
have been a classical template for a national debate
on how to revive our moribund educational system
here.
I mean in another milieu, the paper would have
attracted a ‘front-page treatment and would have
been adopted as a reform agenda paper. In the same
vein, some others could have adopted it as a
campaign tool to win election. But the chalice was
poisoned for the person who should have been
moved to the State House as a speech writer, I mean
for his erudition, ability to organise quick desk
research and write in Queen’s English, even as a
scientist. IBB, Yes the IBB I used to know as a
reporter, barely two decades ago, would have invited
the drafter of the wonderful speech as a presidential
speech writer and given much more.
It was later learnt that some politicians and
plotters in the service who were bent on discrediting
him (Adegoroye) were largely responsible for the
noise then in the media. Contrary to reports, he was
never queried by the Secretary to the Government of
the Federation, who was reported to have done so.
Nor was he reprimanded. (Adegoroye, of course, had
written directives of his two ministers to represent
the Visitor) But it was later clear that the reports
were orchestrated in the media to portray Dr.
Adegoroye as ‘volatile’ and a loose cannon who
could not be entrusted with the office of Head of
Service, which was going to be vacant in a few
months from then. Behold, events showed later that
the campaigners were quite successful. That is
Nigeria.”
Adegoroye, then permanent secretary, Federal
Ministry of Education on behalf of President Umaru
Musa Yar’Adua in his capacity as Visitor of Obafemi
Awolowo University.
• Continued from Friday, September 26, 2014
AS a former teacher in a tertiary institution myself, I
know that the academic community is populated
largely by sincere, hardworking, committed and self-
sacrificing people and that the ills of the type that I
highlighted above are perpetrated by a few
individuals. But it takes only one little dash of a
wrong ingredient to spoil a whole pot of soup, or, as
they say, “little foxes spoil the vine.”
Recognising the fact that most undergraduates are
still in their impressionable age, have we wondered
how the ills of these few lecturers have influenced
the attitude and values of the graduates that pass
through them and the consequence on the society?
When at convocations representatives of this group
of lecturers end up on the podium, in their capacity
as deans, and make the usual introductory statement
of presenting students who ‘have been found worthy
in learning and character’, are we being honest to
ourselves and our nation? What character could such
a group of lecturers impart to our students? And if I
may put it more bluntly, when will the certificates
and degrees that universities award on the basis of
“having been found worthy in learning and character”
begin to measure up to the highest level of the
content of their intentions?
Your Excellencies, the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor,
Member of the University Senate, Honorary
Graduands, Graduands, Distinguished Guests, Ladies
and Gentlemen; coming to the concluding part of my
address, this is the essence of all that I have tried to
say: The challenges of the 21st century are different
and more complex than what human society has
faced in the entire history of mankind. The results of
the industrial revolution and the pursuit of
abundance from the 18th to the 20th century are
atavistic, manifesting as environmental
consequences and the development challenges that
we currently face. Because they are atavistic we can,
and indeed, we have been able to identify the causes
through accumulated knowledge, and so are able to
fight these challenges.
On the other hand, the challenges of the 21st
Century, which I call the modern evils, do not
present us with easily identifiable enemies to fight,
outside us as individuals. Rather, the consequences
of modern evils lurk behind our intentions or actions,
ready to attack before we notice them. This,
therefore, makes it difficult to fight these ills. For
example, what does society do when someone that
has been trained to fight cyber crime, for one reason
or the other, turns against the system?
This is the nature of the challenges of the 21st
Century, where the legitimacy of human actions are
going to be assessed, not on the basis of
experiences of the past but largely on the basis of
the expected consequences for the future.
Accordingly, a whole range of new integrated
knowledge will be required to address the
sustainability of human society. The time to evolve
this new integrated knowledge is now! This is the
essence of the declaration of 2005-2014 as the
United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development.
The form of education that the world needs in the
21st Century is one that will emphasise the
development of a ‘New Being’ – a whole, total-
packaged human being, whose university training is
based not on discipline alone but on the full
integration and internalisation of human and societal
values and respect for the environment, in a holistic
interface that seeks to achieve justice, equity and
world peace.
For us as a nation, and indeed for Africa, this
truism translates to our ability to recognise our
invaluable cultural heritage as the bedrock of our
education. Judging from the experience of other
stable cultures, I believe that it is in this path that
we can achieve sustainable development in this
increasingly competitive and globalised world. We
must go back to the basics and recognise that our
strength lies in the rich values of our diverse
cultures, which stress the need to take care of the
underprivileged, to respect the elders, shun greed
and promote harmony and peace.
My administration is committed to providing the
necessary support to the academic community to
enable it play its crucial and indispensable role in
this new venture. Only last week the Federal
Executive Council considered that a bill be sent to
the National Assembly (NASS), amending the
Education Trust Fund (ETF) Act, to enable it focus on
tertiary education, with particular emphasis on
universities as originally intended. Now that new
ministers have been sworn-in for the ministry, we
will announce the reconstituted governing councils
for universities and other tertiary institutions of the
Federal Government. Thereafter, I would expect the
universities to swing into action by addressing the
ills that I highlighted earlier. Already, the Minister of
Education has been directed to ensure that the NUC,
supported by the security agencies, fish out and
extricate the bad eggs in our universities.
The next step is to commence an overhaul of our
curriculum to ensure that education is reoriented
towards sustainable development. Even our basic
education policy would have to be revised to
address sustainability through expanded curricula
that include critical thinking skills, skills to organise
and interpret data, ability to analyse issues that
confront communities and ability to make choices
that neither erode the natural resource base nor
impinge on the social equity and justice of
neighbours. There is no doubt that in addition to
improved funding from the government, the
university system still requires considerable
autonomy to enable it take responsibility, not only
for the content and quality of its programmes, but
the mobilisation, channelling and management of the
resources it requires for its growth and development.
This is the only way it can aspire to compete with
world acclaimed universities and be relevant in the
knowledge-driven society of the 21st century.
The Vice-Chancellor, Visiting Vice Chancellors,
Members of the University Senate; as members of
the academic community, to whom the society looks
up for direction, you carry the burden of a moral
responsibility to live by example, in order to be able
to advise the students on the direction of governance
and nation-building. You also have the
responsibility, not only of understanding, but of
putting into practice what you intend to impart into
your students. Sustainable development is anchored
on the principle of societal integration and
acceptance. Esoteric research and paper publication
for the sake of numbers and accelerated promotion
is shallow academic pursuit and runs against the
principles of sustainable development.
I, therefore, charge you to quickly find the missing
link between research publication and societal
development and let your appointments and
promotions committee begin to bridge the gap
between peer review acceptance and societal
relevance and acceptability of the research findings
published in academic journals as basis for the
promotion of your members.
Finally, let the certificates and degrees you award
on the basis of ‘having been found worthy in
learning and character’ live up to the highest level of
the content of their intentions.
We have an urgent task, not only of restoring the
lost glory of our universities, but of overhauling our
entire education system through strategies that will
guarantee our march towards sustainable
development. Arising from the motto, “For Learning
and Culture”, which places on this university a moral
responsibility, and its academic records as one of
the very best in Africa, I am confident that this
university can blaze the trail and mobilise its
counterparts to henceforth produce for our nation,
“Graduates of the 21st Century, the New Beings”, as
true products of an education programmes that are
anchored on learning and character. This is a task for
which we cannot afford to fail.
CONCLUDED
• Culled from Beyond Yours Faithfully by Goke
Adegoroye, Ph.D, 2010.
Comments:
This paper, written and delivered by Dr. Goke
Adegoroye, then Permanent Secretary, Federal
Ministry of Education on behalf of President
Yar’Adua in his capacity as Visitor of the University,
referred to the challenges of the 21st Century as
“modern evils which do not present easily
identifiable enemies to fight but lurk behind
intentions or actions, ready to attack before one
notices, thus making it difficult to fight.”
According to Dr. Adegoroye, “what does society do
when someone that has been trained (with public
funds) to fight cyber crime, for one reason or the
other, turns against the system”?
As for the solution, Dr. Adegoroye said: “The form
of education that the world needs in the 21st
Century is one that will emphasise the development
of a ‘New Being’ – a whole, total-packaged human
being, whose university training is based, not on
discipline alone but, on the full integration and
internalisation of human and societal values and
respect for the environment, in a holistic interface
that seeks to achieve justice, equity and world
peace”.
This address was delivered in 2008, that is: A
whole two years before the first suicide bomb was
exploded on Nigeria during the 2010 Independence
celebrations; four years before Edward Snowden of
the U.S. turned against his country and is now on
‘asylum’ in the custody of the arch rival of his
country; and three years before Boko Haram got out
of control.
Unfortunately, rather than focus on the message,
the nation’s attention was diverted to the needless
controversy of whether or not Adegoroye was
authorised by the President. That Adegoroye was
implementing written directives of the two ministers
who were his direct principal was not enough to
assuage the shadowy adversarial sources of the
controversy. But then, can we now say that, as a
nation, we are addressing the issues of our
education system along the line that Dr. Adegoroye
mapped out in 2008?
Martins Oloja wrote in his Afterword to Beyond
Yours Faithfully, published in 2010:
“…Shadowy adversarial sources were said to be
responsible for the furore that followed the Visitor’s
address he (Dr. Goke Adegoroye) delivered on behalf
of the President at the 36th Obafemi Awolowo
University (OAU) convocation, on 20th December,
2008, which mysteriously snowballed into a national
controversy. What was the issue? Dr. Adegoroye was
‘accused’ of adding value to a colourless annually
recycled address. The 19-page, well-written
president’s address entitled, ‘Revisiting Our
Educational System as a Platform for National
Transformation and Sustainable Development’, would
have been a classical template for a national debate
on how to revive our moribund educational system
here.
I mean in another milieu, the paper would have
attracted a ‘front-page treatment and would have
been adopted as a reform agenda paper. In the same
vein, some others could have adopted it as a
campaign tool to win election. But the chalice was
poisoned for the person who should have been
moved to the State House as a speech writer, I mean
for his erudition, ability to organise quick desk
research and write in Queen’s English, even as a
scientist. IBB, Yes the IBB I used to know as a
reporter, barely two decades ago, would have invited
the drafter of the wonderful speech as a presidential
speech writer and given much more.
It was later learnt that some politicians and
plotters in the service who were bent on discrediting
him (Adegoroye) were largely responsible for the
noise then in the media. Contrary to reports, he was
never queried by the Secretary to the Government of
the Federation, who was reported to have done so.
Nor was he reprimanded. (Adegoroye, of course, had
written directives of his two ministers to represent
the Visitor) But it was later clear that the reports
were orchestrated in the media to portray Dr.
Adegoroye as ‘volatile’ and a loose cannon who
could not be entrusted with the office of Head of
Service, which was going to be vacant in a few
months from then. Behold, events showed later that
the campaigners were quite successful. That is
Nigeria.”
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