www.unilorin.edu.ng
vc@unilorin.edu.ng
NEVER SAY DIE
www.iau.org
Text of the Address Delivered by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin and
President of the Association of African Universities, Professor Is-haq O. Oloyede,
on the Occasion of the 1st Capacity Building Lecture organised by the Faculty of
Law, University of Ilorin on Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at the Auditorium,
University of Ilorin.
NEVER SAY DIE
It is my pleasure to welcome you all to this special programme. I especially welcome our resourceful guest
speaker, whose commitment to human development has resulted in the opportunity he avails our students
today in order tap from his rich wealth of experience. I also want to congratulate the Faculty of Law for its
thoughtfulness in organising this lecture, which I sincerely think is a right step in the right direction. I believe
that at the end of the programme, all of us here present, especially our final year students who constitute the
primary audience, would have gained tremendously from it.
Our world of today is fundamentally different from the one inhabited by our forefathers. This is noticeable in
virtually all facets of life. New opportunities thrown up by the dynamics of scientific and technological
advancement come along with critical challenges. Part of these challenges is the expansion of the frontiers of
learning and the need to translate ideas into capital. As a matter of fact, the sole causative agent of poverty
and under-development is lack of ideas and people remain poor not because they have no money but because
they lack ideas.
While graduates of the most part of the last century were expected to seek employment, graduates of today
are expected to create it. In most parts of the world, the purpose of education now is to be self-reliant and it is
considered incongruous for a university degree holder not to be able to use his knowledge to positively engage
himself/ herself. In the first annual report of J. P. Morgan Chase, a firm that has an asset of $1.3 million, it is
said that “the power of intellectual capital is the ability to breed ideas that ignite value”. This means that
knowledge and ideas are the engine that drive economic growth and human survival.
It is in this respect that the fourth Nigerian educational goal and objective concerns “the acquisition of the
appropriate skills, abilities and competencies both mental and physical as equipment for the individual to live
in and contribute to the development of the society”. As I said on Tuesday June 2, 2009 (in an address I called
“The Right Course”) when members of the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (AVCNU)
were starting their conference here at the University of Ilorin, education concerns the development of the
three h’s: the head, the heart and the hands which are respectively referred to as the cognitive, the affective
and the psycho-motor domains of learning. I also added that the need to combine the three had been
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emphasised by Goethe who noted that “knowing is not enough; we must apply. Wishing is not enough; we
must do. ”
The imperative of equipping our students with the challenges of the world of work or cannot thus be overemphasised. Unemployment and under-employment are a rude reality that millions of people are contending
with across the world. In Nigeria, the rate of unemployment has worsened in the last 10 years from about 15%
in 2003 to at least 20% in 2009 with at least 40% of our youth population being unemployed. This stresses
the fact that those who are knowledgeable should be imbued with skills that will make them to be
economically independent without necessarily seeking employment from anyone.
Our response to this challenge at the University of Ilorin is the establishment of the Technical and
Entrepreneurship Centre (TEC) and the expansion of COBES programme at the beginning of this
Administration with the mandate of equipping the students with self-employment skills. This has started to
yield positive results as the University now produces graduates who are expected to be job creators rather
than job seekers through the courses and skills they are equipped with.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is trite to say that Nigeria has a huge potential that it is inconceivable for people to
be grappling with poverty. The opportunities available in agriculture alone are innumerable. With 79 million
hectares of fertile land, a rich vegetation capable of supporting a wide range of diverse livestock, 267.7 billion
m3 of surface water, 57.9 billion m3 of underground water and 3.14 million hectares of irrigable land,
extensive coastal region rich in fish with other marine products and several natural resources, Nigeria has all
it takes to be food sufficient. The missing link appears to be an inability to convert the resources to products
just as the failure of many to convert knowledge to wealth.
It is on the basis of the foregoing that I think a capacity building lecture aptly themed “Unleash the Dragon:
Survival Kit for the 21st Century Workplace” will further help in no small way in unleashing the potential of
our esteemed students so that they will graduate to be self-sufficient through the various kits they have been
provided by the University. I believe that the time is now for all of you to be thinking of what you can do with
your training to improve the lot of others, not putting all your eggs in the basket of seeking jobs that are not
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even existent. This lecture promises to guide you further in that direction and this is why I think it is very
important for you to listen to it and digest it.
Before I conclude, that life is struggle is a common popular saying. The reality of the 21 st century workplace is
that of struggle to survive on a continual basis. Struggle against distractions, struggle against failure, struggle
towards attaining success, struggle towards a better life for oneself and the society. Never say die or never
give up because it is not easy. As you must be aware, nothing great and noble can ever be achieved without
struggle, sacrifice and sweat.
Finally, when Tai Solarin wrote several years back an essay he called “may your road be rough”, he quickly
added that he was not cursing anyone but was only wishing his audience what he wished himself. The road to
success especially in this 21st century is always rough. Determination is essential towards attaining it. So,
never say die in striving and trying to attain your best. Never give up in struggling now and later because just
as winners don’t quit, quitters don’t win.
I wish you all success in your endeavours and I hope you will make the best use of the training and skills being
imparted in you through various fora provided by the university.
Thank you very much for your attention.
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