WHILE the Nigerian tertiary education landscape is plagued with problems that demand urgent attention, the Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, seems interested in exploring a controversial policy. During his tour of the 2024 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination centres, Mamman said that the Federal Government is considering the adoption of 18 years as the entry age for admission into universities and other tertiary institutions. This is a backward proposal; it should be consigned to the dustbin.

Mamman’s grounds for this retrogressive proposal are that younger students are responsible for some of the challenges within the system. He suggests that they are not mature, unsuitable, and unable to manage their affairs.

He argues that some of these younger students are meant to remain in the controlled spaces of their parents rather than in the vibrant university environment. These arguments are fallacious.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities lends its support to the age benchmark. The President of ASUU, Emmanuel Osodeke, describes it as a welcome development and wants regulators to implement existing laws to enforce the age limit. This is overregulation. The position contradicts ASUU’s consistent activism for university autonomy as the age benchmark should be firmly within the purview of each university.


There is no guarantee that the policy will succeed. In Nigeria, parents will devise unwholesome means to circumvent it, as they are doing with the age policy to enter Federal Government Colleges.

The proposed policy can exclude younger, brilliant, and self-motivated students from admission into the universities of their choice.

In a digitalised world, the policy would drag Nigeria backward. Universities compete for the best in their admissions process. At inception, the Obafemi Awolowo university, in its wisdom, prescribed no age limit. There is nothing wrong with this.

For his brilliant performance, Oluwafemi Ositade, 17, a student at a secondary school in Ota, Ogun State, has just earned a Harvard university and 17 other Ivy League scholarships in the United States, Canada, and Qatar, amounting to $3.5 million. If the policy is implemented, that means Ositade would miss the golden chance. This is not logical.

One of the ills bedevilling tertiary education in Nigeria is the lack of autonomy. It is part of Nigeria’s flawed federalism in which the centre controls the affairs of the federating units in a master-servant relationship. Consequently, the Federal Government and the National Universities Commission render the authorities of universities redundant. This is ridiculous.

Therefore, rather than micro-managing tertiary institutions, the Federal Government should allow individual universities to determine the minimum age limit of their students.

In the United Kingdom, each university oversees its admissions. Swansea, Southampton, and Cardiff universities admit at age 16; Kent pegs it at 17 years. While the Open university admits at 16 years or lower, Cambridge prescribes an age of 18 for some courses, including medicine. Therefore, Mamman should face the real problems affecting education in Nigeria, especially the 20.2 million out-of-school children figure.

The tertiary institutions are bogged by shabby infrastructure and poor funding; in a dynamic world, their curricula are obsolete.There is a lecturer shortfall.

Nigeria’s universities rank low globally. In the 2023 Webometric ranking, the university of Ibadan, which ranked first in Nigeria, is 14th in sub-Saharan Africa, 21st in Africa, and 1,138th in the world. Cairo university (521) and the university of Cape Town (237) fare better on the impact, openness, and excellence criteria.

Despite the prevalence of incessant strikes and university closures, younger graduates have ample leverage in the labour market.


The Federal Government should look within. It creates problems by establishing more universities when it cannot adequately fund the existing ones. With better funding, the institutions will thrive. This deserves priority.

So, the age limit requirement is a chasing after the shadows, it must be dropped.

Normally, I don't do this, but when a lie is said overtime, it tends to turn truth.

What Reno Omokri is doing now, was the same format that was used to assassinate the character of his former boss, Ex. President Goodluck Jonathan.

Reno that is now forming savvy and table shaker was a social media aide to Jonathan, yet newbies like Tolu Ogunlesi, Omojuwa, Bashir Ahmed used lies and propaganda to pursue a better President than all that their party APC has given us. Reno folded his arms and boys ran him over.

Well, I don't have the time to continue to discuss Reno, because he's a rabble rouser and his kind deserve just total ignoring, just as Peter Obi is doing to him already.

Sticking to the main purpose of this post, I will be listing out some of the strides Peter Obi made in the education system as Anambra state governor, with a good number of schools that he built, renovated and upgraded.

While Reno is having orgasm over just 4 Millennium schools that are currently dilapidated that Tinubu built, checkout this link to see the state of the so called school..

I will be listing over 100 schools that Obi brought life into in Anambra state and these schools are still doing wonders for the state and country at large. Atleast we all can see some of the achievements of Anambra school children both locally and internationally.

First on my list is Anambra state university Igbariam Campus.

Yes, Anambra state university have been in existence since the year 2000. But it had only one campus in Uli, Anambra state and originally, it was Anambra State university of Science and Technology.


Read through the schools website to confirm yourself.
https://coou.edu.ng/our-history/

Currently, Anambra State university which is now Chukwuemeka Odimekwu Ojukwu university has three campuses.

*Anambra State university, Uli
*Anambra State university, Igbariam
*Anambra State university, Awka.

Due to the nature and location of the Uli campus, which was situated on a site for Ekwenugo Okeke Polytechnic, HE. Peter Obi led administration in 2006, began the construction of the second campus which is located at Igbariam in the former site of the College of Agriculture.

The law establishing the university phased out the State Polytechnic and the university inherited its assets and liabilities.

On the other hand, the university law failed to repeal the Edict establishing the College of Agriculture, Igbariam, hence, legally, the university and the College existed side by side at the Igbariam Campus site, until 2006 (Obi's Administration) when the government relocated the College of Agriculture to Mgbakwu, about fifteen kilometers away from Igbariam.

By the Anambra State university Amendment Law No. ANHA/LAW/2006/01 of 26th January, 2006 (Obi's Administration), the name of the university was changed to Anambra State university

In 2010 (Obi's Administration), the Amaku General Hospital, Awka, was converted to College of Medicine and Teaching Hospital after it received legal backing as the state House of Assembly passed an amendment act to situate a third campus in Awka.

If you go to the school's website,.... You will see all the history of the school.

https://coou.edu.ng/our-history/

How the Anambra State House Assembly under Peter Obi legislated the new Igbariam campus and this particular campus was built from scratch and was Commissioned by Peter Obi. Faculty of Law, Management courses were amongst the buildings.

Let us take Abia State university for instance.

The main school campus which is in Uturu was built by Dee Sam Mbakwe.

The the Medical school and Teaching hospital in Aba was built by Orji Uzor Kalu, and the new School of Law in Umuahia was built by Theodore Orji.

Please reasonable Nigerians, for the fact that the school was built by Mbakwe, will you now throw away the works of the two other governors or say they didn't build any school?

In Business we call it Subsidiary,

In Health we call it Annex,

In Banking we call it branch.

Then in Education, we call it Campus.

For the fact that a bank has its headquarters in Abuja, doesn't mean their branch in Lagos wasn't built from scratch or mean the branch is not a new building.

Same thing applies in business. For the fact that Dangote has already made name and amassed wealth from his age long Cement business, doesn't mean his Refinery isn't a new idea initiated, built by him. Since the Igbariam Campus built by Obi isn't new enough, maybe Dangote should have given his Refinery a new name or Federal Medical Center, Akure be given a new name from Federal Medical Center, Owo.

A 17-year-old Nigerian student, Oluwafemi Ositade, has secured full scholarships to multiple Ivy League universities in the United States, including Harvard, as well as other top notch universities in Canada and Qatar.

He is a member of the Class of 2023 of The Ambassadors College, Ota, and the scholarships are worth over $3.5 million.

Ositade’s astounding success stems from his exceptional performance in the SAT where he achieved a perfect score in Maths (800/800) and a near-perfect score of 760 out of 800 in reading and writing and his CGPA of 4.04/4.0 from college.

Armed with these remarkable achievements and track record of excellence, Ositade received 14 scholarships from renowned institutions nine of which are full ride scholarships (covering tuition, accommodation, allowance and all other student’s expenses).

The universities that have extended scholarship offers to Ositade are Harvard university, Brown university, Duke university, university of Toronto Lester B Pearson Scholarship, Wesleyan university, Carnegie Mellon university in Qatar, university of Miami, Howard university, Stetson university, Fisk university, university of Toronto, Mississauga Campus, university of Toronto St. George Campus, university of Toronto, Scarborough Campus and Drexel university.

His academic prowess extends beyond standardised tests. In the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), with a score of 358, he ranked as the second best in Nigeria for the year 2023.

Additionally, in the 2023 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), Ositade boasts of eight A’s and one B2. It is also worthy of note that Ositade has represented his schools in lots of local and international competitions where he has also proven his academic prowess with many laurels won for himself and his school.

With a strong passion for Quantum Computing and Mathematics, he intends to pursue a degree in Computational Physics, and he is poised to make significant strides in his chosen field.

Ositade remarked that these feats could not have been possible without his zeal and the preparatory efforts of his alma mater, The Ambassadors College, Ota (a Christian Co-Educational School). The school’s structured academic programme, blending British and

Nigerian curricula, equipping students with the necessary skills and knowledge to excel on both local and international platforms. Offering classes and specialized courses such as SAT, IELTS, and A-levels, the school ensures that students like Ositade not only achieve stellar academic results but also position themselves for coveted scholarships in Ivy League universities.

Upon receiving the life-changing news of his acceptance to Harvard, Brown, Duke and other Prestigious universities, the 17-year-old expressed profound elation, citing that he owes his achievements to God Almighty who has been the bedrock of his success.

His achievements underscore the plethora of opportunities available for Nigerian youths to thrive on the global academic stage.