Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State, on Wednesday tasked the federal government under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari to create 50 million productive employment opportunities for Nigerians, with a view to stimulate the generation of N1.25 trillions revenue.
He identified the need to encourage productive economy as a catalyst for tackling socio-economic challenges, thereby discouraging living on unearned income from rents as against income from productivity
Aregbesola, who was the guest lecturer at the 10th Convocation Lecture of Lead City University at the institution’s conference centre in Ibadan in a lecture titled, “Evolution of Private University Education and Issues Miscellany in Governance of the Federation” encouraged the Federal Government to directly create 50 million jobs, in a move that will turn Nigeria into an economic power in two decades”.
He maintained that “I will like to posit that we should get 50 million of our compatriots to be working i.e. engaged in productive activities that will bring them at least N25,000 a month. From this, N1.25 trillion will be generated in the economy every month from real productive engagement
“These jobs can be created and paid for by ways and means in diverse areas of the economy like agriculture and food production, clothing and footwear, housing, environment, critical public infrastructure like roads, bridges, airports, railways, water resources development etc that will provide basic needs for the people and cut imports by 90 per cent, reducing foreign goods to critical machineries and raw materials we do not have at home. This will catapult Nigeria into a superpower within two decades”.
While tracing the history of private university to the emergence of Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, Babcock University, Ilisan Remo, Ogun State and Madonna University, Ikija, Anambra State in 1999, Aregbesola described the period as a time when applications to the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) University Matriculation Examination (UME) had peaked at over 750,000, but the maximum admission granted was a paltry 50,000.
He contended that such action had disoriented more than 700,000 qualified secondary school leavers who could not find placement in the federal and state universities at the time.
Aregbesola noted that one of the challenges of society that the universities must solve is how to see university education as a compulsory social service which must be provided to the largest number of people at little cost.
Aregbesola lamented a situation where only the children of very few could afford the fees of private universities. According to him, “no civil servant can, from his or her legitimate earnings, afford these schools and their fees for their children. This has created a problem on its own. Recently, some students could not pay their fees in a university because they invested in Ponzi schemes that went flat and lost their money.
According to him, “one of the challenges of society that the universities must solve is how to see university education as a compulsory social service and which must be provided to the largest number of people at little cost. The next question, of course, is what happens to the students after they leave school. It has become fashionable to proudly claim to have attended a private university, for those who could not travel abroad. Whereas, the job market presently is saturated.
