Experts Implore Tinubu To Bring Back Nigeria's Former Grandeur

President Bola Tinubu

PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu has been counseled to act quickly to revive the nation's “lost glory” in light of the difficulties it is currently facing.

The annual lecture and book launch, titled “Reclaiming Nigeria's Future: Strategic Frameworks for Achieving Transformative Change, was held by Professor Benedicta Egbo on Thursday in Abuja. Prominent campaigner Barr. Dotun Hassan and other education professionals made the call.

Hassan promoted, among other things, the urgent revamping of the educational system in order to promote the nation's overall development.

Hassan stressed the need for a more all-encompassing approach to education, saying that the current system overlooks other crucial facets of growth like morality, emotional intelligence, and critical thinking, among others, since it is overly preoccupied with academic achievement.

“We believe that Mr. President has come up with a renewed hope agenda in which education is part of his vision and a bus stop on his table.

“We want to use this opportunity to let him know that he needs to come up with a national plan on education to increase the budgetary allocation to education to 35 per cent to ensure the curriculum in the educational system is reviewed and ensure proper administration and administrative ordering whereby no more ASUU strike, no more NASU strike and we believe that the best way we can achieve this is through restructuring.

“The constitution of the country is long overdue. We are not talking about a constitutional review, we need a new people's constitution whereby issues of education will have a life of its own and of proper planning and the issue of security would be properly outlined.

“And other issues that are bedeviling this country we can all review and revisit proper documents. We have gotten documents in the past, we have had the Confab report, and we have had to review the constitution in the past so there is no need for a new constitution.

“What the president must do is to come up with a presidential fiat by ensuring he rights the national assembly on the need to reconstruct the constitution based on existing proposals in view of of the Confab report of the previous administration, in view of the SDG goals and proper document and even the 1963 constitution needs to be merged together. We can improve a lot if we have the right constitution.”

According to Professor Egbo, one of the main issues impeding the nation's much-needed growth is a lack of patriotism, with corruption taking a backseat to the nation's problems.

She did, however, voice optimism that Nigeria will start to see significant progress provided the correct measures and action were implemented.

She said: “Nigeria's future generations deserve decent futures. This requires a starting point, critical reflection and deep introspection on our part so that collectively, we can engender the transformative change we all desire and hope for this gathering.

“This August gathering is also premised on the belief that our social economic and socio-political challenges are not intractable. They can be changed because Nigeria has so much talent, resources, and potential.

“Moreover, I am convinced that with the right policies, governance, architecture, strong institutions, and a peaceful, thriving economic environment, Nigeria can once again live up to his nickname as the Giant Of Africa, as well as become an exceptionally respected member among the committee of nations.

“There is, however, one caveat and this is really what I want to focus on. We must identify and address the major and we know there are many causes of our problems. The causes of our problem are multifaceted, but there is one fundamental underlying problem that underpins every other challenge that we face.

“Most Nigerians cite corruption as the country's biggest challenge. However, I beg to differ with the majority opinion. Rather, I would argue that Nigeria's major problem is lack of patriotism or what I sometimes refer to as civic infidelity, infidelity to the country and to the aspirations of the country.”