The Deputy Vice-Chancellor, (Development), Prof. Segun Lagoke, delivering the VC’s address, to his right is the Director, CENTS, Prof. Kayode Bamgbose and Dean, COLERM, Prof. Arowolo, (Left). Director, LEMCEL, Prof. L.O Sanni. Inset, the Lecturer, Mr. Francis Ikenga.
The Group Head, Strategy, of Fidelity Bank Plc, Mr. Francis Ikenga, has observed that the country’s economy would be more enhanced, if deserved attention could be paid to the education and entrepreneurial development of Nigerian youths.
Mr. Ikenga opined that, “contrary to common belief, Nigeria’s greatest resource is her young population and not the natural resources”.
The Group Head who made this declaration at an enlightenment Workshop organized for members of the University Senate, through a paper, titled “Financial Management of Entrepreneurial Development Centres”, pointed out that the nation’s human resources had been lying fallow due to under-utilization.
He called on the nation’s leaders, to stop mortgaging the future of the country by borrowing, but to be more determined in the development of Nigerian Youths.
Decrying the insufficient number
of schools to accommodate the
teeming Nigerian youths, the speaker advised that those that could not be enrolled in schools, should be encouraged for apprenticeship and businesses.
Mr. Ikenga called on government and institutions to help the youth through Entrepreneurial Development Programs (EDP) that will assist in identifying entrepreneurial ability, analyze sources of help and support system for small scale business.
The speaker added that EDP will also help to determine training assistance to enable entrepreneurs acquire skills and capabilities, learn compliance with the law and help to reduce unemployment and eliminate poverty.
Earlier in his address, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Oluwafemi Olaiya Balogun, noted that, “the issue of entrepreneurship has indeed become very topical in Nigeria today because of the compelling need for the citizens to develop business skills that will assist government at various levels in creating jobs for its youths and thereby reducing social upheavals that are prompted by unemployment”.
Professor Balogun who was represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development), Professor Segun Lagoke, said that the University in its proactiveness established a Centre for Skills Development (CENSKID), which he said will now be subsumed by the recently created Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies (CENTS).
The Vice-Chancellor revealed Management’s dream of graduating students with proficiency certificate in any vocation of their choice.
The Director, CENTS and organizer of the enlightenment programme, Prof. Kayode Bamgbose, earlier in his Welcome Address, disclosed that CENTS was established, following the directive of the Federal Government through the National Universities Commission (NUC), to ensure that Universities develop students’ skills, competencies, understandings and attributes that will equip them to be innovative and to create successful personal or community business.
