The Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, has underlined reasons why the country is not progressing as it ought to, despite the enormous resources and manpower.
Tijani, lamented that Nigeria, was not progressing because Nigerians are not applying knowledge and innovation for the development of the country.
He said this while delivering the 33rd convocation lecture of the Federal University of Technology (FUTA), Akure, the Ondo state capital.
According to him “the world needs more youths with technological knowledge to resolve global challenges, our youths are not expected to fish like their forefathers did in the last years.
The minister who delivered a lecture entitled “Knowledge and research as a foundation for prosperous economy” said that for the country to develop, three key sectors must be identified and improved upon.
According to him, the three sectors include; agriculture, manufacturing and servicing had been used to measure the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since 1980.
Tijani said that “universities of technology must rise more to the challenges of technological advancement in the country.
While saying that universities must be creators of jobs through technological advancement, the Minister urged students to embrace self-investment.
”With the level of water body we have, fishery is not growing, we depend on importation of fish. Financial institutions have done very well, but not as we expected them to have grown.
“We are not applying knowledge and innovation; we are expecting to fish like our forefathers did in the last years.
” Forestry is suffering the same things; coming to university is not to get degrees only, knowledge must be generated, disseminated in the way it can advance the country.”
The Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Adenike Oladiji, in her address, said the convocation was to showcase the school as a citadel of knowledge and happy to have brought the minister to Akure for the first time.
