A professor Emeritus of education at the University of Windsor, Canada, Benedicta Egbo has said that one of the major challenges stifling needed development in the country is a lack of patriotism, adding that corruption comes secondary to the country’s challenges.
Egbo was speaking at the annual lecture and book launch, organised in her honour, themed: “Reclaiming Nigeria’s Future: Strategic Frameworks for Achieving Transformative Change, on Thursday in Abuja.
She, however, expressed optimism that if the right steps and action were taken, Nigeria would begin to experience positive growth.
“Nigeria’s future generations deserve decent futures. This requires a starting point, critical reflection, and deep introspection on our part so that collectively, we can engender the transformative change we all desire and hope for this gathering.
“This August gathering is also premised on the belief that our social economic and socio-political challenges are not intractable. They can be changed because Nigeria has so much talent, resources, and potential.
“Moreover, I am convinced that with the right policies, governance, architecture, strong institutions, and a peaceful, thriving economic environment, Nigeria can once again live up to its nickname as the Giant Of Africa, as well as become an exceptionally respected member among the committee of nations,” she said.
Also, Barr. Dotun Hassan, a prominent activist, appealed to President Bola Tinubu to, as a matter of urgency, take necessary actions to restore the country’s ‘lost glory’ amid current challenges bedeviling the country.
Hassan called for immediate educational restructuring in order to drive holistic development in the country.
He also emphasised the need for a more comprehensive approach to education, stating that the current system is focused on academic performance while neglecting other important aspects of development such as emotional intelligence, morals, and critical thinking, among others.
“We believe that the President has come up with a renewed hope agenda in which education is part of his vision and a bus stop on his table.
“We want to use this opportunity to let him know that he needs to come up with a national plan on education to increase the budgetary allocation to education to 35 per cent.
“This is to ensure the curriculum in the educational system is reviewed and ensure proper administration and administrative ordering whereby no more ASUU strike, no more NASU strike and we believe that the best way we can achieve this is through restructuring.
“The constitution of the country is long overdue. We are not talking about a constitutional review, we need a new people’s constitution whereby issues of education will have a life of its own and of proper planning and the issue of security would be properly outlined.
“And other issues that are bedeviling this country we can all review and revisit proper documents. We have gotten documents in the past, we have had the Confab report, we have had to review the constitution in the past so there is no need for a new constitution.
“What the president must do is to come up with a presidential fiat by ensuring he rights the national assembly on the need to reconstruct the constitution based on existing proposals in view of of the Confab report of the previous administration, in view of the SDG goals and proper document and even the 1963 constitution needs to be merged together. We can improve a lot if we have the right constitution.”
In the same vein, a Professor of political science and senior fellow, Centre for Democracy and Development, Prof. Adele Jinadu, said that the pedagogy of education must focus on enabling preparation for moral education.
Jinadu explained that the country cannot talk of reclaiming her future without casting a retrospect on the past by addressing the challenges of moral decay in all institutions – secular and religion.