From Adedeji Joseph, Ilorin.
Son of the late Mohammed Lawal, former governor of Kwara State, Mr. Akeem Lawal; has granted scholarship to 100 out of the 105 students that featured at the matriculation ceremony of Pan African College of Education in Offa, Kwara State.
Lawal, who was honoured as a leading benefactor of the young private College of Education at its 2nd matriculation ceremony made this known at the event where he said his gesture was not to necessarily attract praises from people.
Rather, he said it was to make a point that youth development, particularly education in Nigeria had been pushed to the background by governments and the nation’s leaders.
According to him, it had become pertinent to underscore the need by the government to arrest the spate of delinquencies among the youths arising from the non availability of effective policies to develop youths.
Akeem asserted that qualitative education is the birthright of every Nigerian child which must not be toyed with.
The son of the late governor is believed to be warming up for the governorship race come 2019 at the instance some politicians, particularly the old followers of his father who are still in large numbers.
Meanwhile, the Provost of Pan African College of Education, Mr.Michael Opadere, has said Nigeria is currently infested with all kind of social vices among the youths because agencies saddled with the responsibility of shapening their characters have failed.
The Provost, who was speaking at the matriculation ceremony asserted that youths take to vices because a good number of them who just completed their secondary school education could not go further as a result of their poor financial backgrounds.
Opadere said these youths were prospective tertiary education students because they were soundly admittable could not afford it for lack of money
He lamented further that Nigeria, a country widely known for its good religious standing with numerous clerics does not pay serious attention to the development of her youths, even spiritually.
His words; “It is worrisome today that youths in Nigeria have lost their virtues of hard work, honesty and sense of morality in general. It is an irony all these are happening in our country and not much is done about it”.
He had asked; “Must we watch well meaning Nigerians with wonderful intellectual abilities fall into nothingness and become huge wastes? Must we allow these alterative survival strategies evolved by our youths continue to win converts for exhibition of cruelty…the spirit of the disturbing complacency must stop.
His College, he said had resolved to say no to all the disturbing questions by making sure that the spirit of complacency on the part of government and people must stop “and that all hands must be on deck to face this cankerworm head on”.
To do this he said, the college has launched a tuition-free scholarship programme targeting 1,500 students as part of its corporate responsibility to the society for 2018/2019 session.