Dear Governor Ambode
Your Excellency, Please permit me to start by congratulating you on your victory at the polls on the platform of APC and subsequent inauguration as the 14th Governor of Lagos State. I have no doubt in my mind that your deserved victory can be attributed to the enormous support from the youths albeit other factors.
Without cutting corners, the purpose of this letter is to bring to your notice the plight of the undergraduates in your state, our state. Before I continue, permit me to tell you a true story. Your Excellency, during the contest for the Mr. University Africa 2014, which by the grace of God I emerged winner. At the camp, we were asked to write an essay on a simple yet intricate topic ‘write on one major legacy that Awolowo is immortalized for’. Delegates from schools in different parts of the continent kept writing on his free and quality education policy. One thing that struck me inwardly was that this legacy he fought for, stood by, accomplished--this same legacy that most people from your age bracket benefitted from. This legacy is no more. The Awoists have destroyed his legacy.
Your Excellency what is happening in the Lagos State University calls for serious concern and your immediate attention. How can a school deliver on quality education when students spend more time outside the classroom than inside it? No educational institution can achieve an international standard with such laze-affair treatment towards its students and responsibilities. The staff-management squabbles have long taken a tool on the quality of education being delivered. Your Excellency there is an urgent need for you wade into the matter and get it resolved once and for all.
I humbly suggest that the conclave system for election of new popes in the Catholic Church can be borrowed. This situation has reached its peak. The only way out of the endless meetings that usually end in deadlock is for all the actors and stakeholders (including the student body) to converge in a neutral place where no one leaves till a sustainable agreement is reached.
It is pertinent for me to use this opportunity to draw your mind on the long debated issue of free tuition in Nigeria tertiary schools. We wouldn’t be asking for too much if we request that you at least reduce the school fees to the barest minimum. We appreciate the stance that the former governor took in reducing the school fees from the outrageous 180,000 to 75,000, this is laudable but we believe there is more to be done. The notion that quality education cannot be achieved with free tuition is totally false. Countries such as Brazil, Finland, Singapore, Sweden, Norway, Argentina and even Libya all provide free and quality education to its citizens in their tertiary institutions. Ironically some of these countries offer free education to the brightest of our citizens, only to absorb them into their work force. Talk about brain drain. The best way a government can invest is through its educational system. I believe that the current culture, ethics and ethnos surrounding our educational structure has to be looked into. No educational institution should rely on school fees as a main source of revenue. A university can generate revenues through other means such as:
1) Companies and individuals can endow classrooms and courses
2) Each faculty can create a revenue generating net-profit continuing education programs
3) Creating a University community blog and running ads on it. The likes of linda Ikeji and Stella dimokokorkus are living proves of how much this can generate for the institution.
4) Research grant funds from notable organizations
5) Publish books written by lecturers and earn a stipulated percentage profit.
6) Most importantly run a transparent and cost efficient management.
As the late Nelson Mandela once said ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world’. As a man who ran under the change mantra, free quality education should be your priority because only through this can our youths be equipped to be the leaders, builders and bastion of the society which we crave for. The youths are not the leaders of tomorrow, they are the leaders of today. The future is here, the future has begun and we are already late.
Please accept the assurances of my highest regards.
Yours faithfully,
Yemi Cregx
(Mr. University Africa 2014)
www.facebook.com/mrvarsitynigeria

@Mods

Thought provoking tho ...... The Educational system in Nigeria needs to be revamped holistically.... Not only lagos but all state institutions..... God help us all