By Ibitoye Philip Eniola

Prof. Chris Imafidon, University of Ilorin’s 2017 convocation lecturer, gave an enterprising lecture on Thursday, October 19th, that cuts across important facets of life and smacks of all goodness. I was “very unlucky” not to be on campus that day but I was not to miss much of the lecture as I got real time updates of the lecture on Twitter and I also got to watch it live on YouTube for a while until I got a distress notification from Airtel my data was running into trouble. You can still join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag, #thegeniusinyou.

Prof. Chris Imafidon started his lecture by reading out Nelson Mandela’s quote on education: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” You can’t but agree with Nelson Mandela. Education is the background of development anywhere in the world.

A nation who does not build herself on education builds herself on the sand and is doomed to collapse. A nation who does build herself on education builds herself on the rock and is bound to stand for as long as the ritual is maintained. A nation like Nigeria who undermines the importance of the education sector to her development plunges herself into a largesse of backwardness.

The Nigerian state has shown countless times she does not attach any much importance to the education sector. Like Prof. Imafidon sited during the lecture, the budget for defence in the national budget for 2017 is higher than that of Education. I find it hard to understand what you are ‘defending’ when your education sector is in shambles; a perfect example of ‘misplaced priority’. Kofi Annan quipped, “Education is, quite simply, peace-building by another name. It is the most effective form of defense spending there is.”

Kofi Annan, described knowledge as power, information as liberating and education as the premise of progress, in every society and every family. The Nigerian government in its 2017 budget allocated N448.01billion to education, representing about a meagre 6 percent of the N7.30 trillion budget, maligning the recommendation of the United Nations that recommends a country’s education budget constitute 26% of the national budget.

Earlier in the year, a state governor asked protesting students an infamous rhetorical question when addressing them: “Is this the first time a university will be closed down?” The governor’s tone depicts that of a man who attaches no importance to the education sector. You expect an intelligent governor to find a lasting solution so a University that has been closed down for more than 8months (a strike that continued for the next 6months) can be reopened for normal academic activities. Let me echo the ace broadcaster, Edmund Obilo, a state like Nigeria that makes her Universities irrelevant is guilty of foisting underdevelopment on itself.

We sadly don’t realize the power of education in our country and that has made the important sector to take the backseat. The world powers never got to that level of relevance because of the measure of oil they can export, they got there because they gave room to education which is the bedrock of all innovations and inventions. The Nigerian government should make education their priority same way the Cuban government has done which have done them lots of good since the country’s revolution.

If you give more priority to ‘defence', the 15-year-old Rasaki Adisa that has failed to get a basic education and has become a bus conductor at Beere, Ibadan will make your ‘defence' crumble when the shameless Senator Ajanlekoko needs touts to mobilize in his campaigns for the forthcoming elections. It is the sorry situation some uneducated youths have found themselves that has made them vulnerable as easy tools for selfish politicians to employ as threat to lives and property.

Equip the minds and the state will develop. Fail to equip the minds and you’ll find the state sinking. Invest more in brain wells and not oil wells. Brain wells are far more productive than oil wells in a nation’s development. Until Nigeria makes education a priority, we had still keep on moving in circles with no destination in sight and we had still continue wallowing in underdevelopment, having ourselves only to blame for the virus we created with our own hands.

Ibitoye Philip Eniola is a writer, a budding social commentator. He can be reached on ibitoye.philipo@gmail.com

Cc: Fynestboi , olawalebabs , Richiez