From Priscilla Ediare, Ado Ekiti
The Ogoga of Ikere Ekiti, Oba Adejimi Adu-Alagbado, has said for government and Nigerian leaders to allow politicians to expend billions of naira on the purchase of nomination forms when university education was decaying due to underfunding was bad and unfair.
Oba Adu-Alagbado, who said this at the weekend in his palace while presenting a N16 million worth of Ambulance donated by his community to Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology, Ikere Ekiti (BOUESTl), advised that the monies could be channelled to tackle insecurity and revive the education sector from its current state.
The first-class monarch said: “Our politicians are buying nomination forms to contest at very high prices and the university are not well funded, while researches are not being carried out. I believe this is bad and unfair.
“These monies can be used to adequately fund our universities, particularly giving our youth employment through research and innovation. Even, the security crises that we have today were because of our poor value system. We have to change our attitude.
“We must continue to say the truth because we will account for all our deeds. I am challenging this university to be different. We want to be seeing its impacts on this community in terms of development within the next 10 years.”
Oba Adu-Alagbado hinted that the ambulance was not just donated by the Ikere elite, saying “market men and women, chiefs, technicians and Babalawos all sacrificed to purchase this vehicle. I commend my subjects for their unity of purpose.
“This ambulance will be useful now that the population of students and staff are increasing. This gesture will also help in telling us that we should patronise made in Nigeria goods. We bought it from Innoson Motors.
“We didn’t want to buy “Tokunbo ambulance”. If we continue to buy made in Nigeria products, that is the only way we can create jobs for our youth. To all of us here, if we want to buy anything, buy made in Ekiti products, including farm products like pepper, tomato and all that.
“We can’t continue to buy things from foreign countries and expect our youth to get jobs. That is the reason why our university must do research, bring out innovations and give to local industries to make or manufacture their products,” he stated.
Describing the gift as stunning and rewarding, Governor Kayode Fayemi, represented by the Education Commissioner, Dr Bimpe Aderiye, appreciated the community for taking this step to help the university.
Fayemi said: “Last year, the community donated a sum of N60m to the university as a take-off grant out of N500m they promised to give to the institution.
“This is a communal love that our forefathers had for education. Kabiyesi, this university will run as no one has ever run before. The government and individuals will rise to help the university. We will get results sooner than we ever expected”.
In his response, BOUESTI Vice-Chancellor, Prof Victor Adeoluwa, appreciated Oba Adu-Alagbado and Ikere Community for seeing the university as their “baby”.
“To let you know that we are striving towards excellence, BOUESTI now has an ICT worth N118 million through donations from some bodies. We have introduced new and novel courses like degrees in Clothing and Textile and Fashion Designing Studies to make us unique.”