Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has lamented the extent of decay in Nigeria’s education system and called for all-inclusive reforms to effectively rescue the sector.
Obasanjo who expressed this worry when the leadership of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) paid him a courtesy visit at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, Ogun State, said unless the entire system was totally overhauled and reformed, the country’s education sector would continue to decline.
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The delegation, which was led by the Chairman of the CVCNU, Professor Samuel Gowon Edoumiekumo, who is the Vice-Chancellor of the Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, was in Abeokuta, Ogun State to intimate the former president on the forthcoming 60th-anniversary ceremony of the association.
While welcoming the delegation, Obasanjo said, “One of the things we haven’t gotten right in Nigeria is education and if we get it right; it will be the basis of getting a number of other things right.”
He canvassed for government at all levels to make education accessible and affordable to all at all levels.
Obasanjo urged the leadership of CVCNU to restrict itself to nominations and assemblage of the necessary credentials for the appointment of vice-chancellors, which he said should be the prerogative of state governors at the state-owned universities and the president at federal universities.
Earlier, the chairman of CVCNU said the purpose of the visit was to tap from Obasanjo’s wealth of experience having served as the Visitor to all the nation’s federal universities during his eight years rule as president.
Edoumiekumo expressed the hope that their visit to the ex-president ahead of the celebration of CVCNU would assist them to have a successful outing.
From Victor Moses, Abeokuta
