Below is the text of the speech delivered by the Governor at
the event:
There is no doubt that it gladdens my heart to be here,
particularly when you know that the focus of our administration is education. And
severally I have tried to define education as I understand it. I have always
insisted that education is just structured information and that structured
information is what people call education. And education migrates to learning.
Learning is skill, skill becomes your ability, ability is your capability and
capability is empowerment. So, to us education is learning, it is knowledge, it
is skill, ability, capability, it is empowerment. And what we are doing today
is simply empowering ourselves.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, as an individual,
knowledge determines your success in life. As a society, it determines your
development, your progress. Those leading countries of the world today are not leading
because they are many but because they are knowledge driven. Whether you call
it IT, call it manufacturing or even if you are talking entertainment, it is
all about knowledge. And for our own administration, knowledge is key. We are a
knowledge-driven administration.
If you don’t remember this administration for anything else,
I want you to remember us for knowledge and if I recall from the word of one of
the renowned administrators, Peter Strople, he succinctly put it that if you
want to leave a legacy, it is not leaving something for people. “Legacy is
leaving something in people”. Therefore, if you leave knowledge in people, they
will forever remember you and they will forever remember your good legacy.
The most celebrated administrator in Nigeria, particularly
in this part of the world is Chief Obafemi Awolowo. What did he leave?
Education. There are many huge buildings in Nigeria today. There were many rich
people in Nigeria before. Do you hear of them again? Where is Da Rocha? Da
Rocha used to be the richest man in Nigeria. Where is his building where he was
living? The building is still there but it is dilapidated. Even if you look
around you, if we say the most celebrated people in the world today and that
will continue to be forever, they were people sent by God to give us knowledge
of religion. Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). We got to know of God
through them.
And when you look at what we are doing today, it is
knowledge, how to run the society, how to succeed in everything that we do. For
the students, we are particularly grateful to all of you for your stamina, for
your determination. I was told that some of you didn’t sleep. I don’t sleep
too. And if you want to succeed, you must learn not to sleep. I am so delighted
about the organizers, that this is how Bill Gates started. So I want to thank
the organizers of this programme. I am really impressed.
And I am quick to say that this is why in Oyo State, when we
came in, we started with a tripod of development. We wanted restoration, we
wanted transformation and we wanted repositioning. We just didn’t pick all
these words. To those who may not understand it, look at you having a car, an
old Mercedes Benz. If it is a 1960 Mercedes Benz that you have purchased, the
tyres are worn out, the wipers are not working well, you need to push the car
to start, the hydraulics are leaking, the radiator is always leaking, the seats
are torn, that is your old car. Now, use that as our Oyo State and I want to
say that that old Mercedes which is Oyo State, when it was new. When it was in
Western Region, we were the pace setters. Intellectual capital, first university
was built here, first college building was built here, first university
teaching hospital was built here, the University College Hospital, UCH, first
television. That was then. That was the Mercedes Benz that we bought that was
new. But by the time we came in, it was dilapidated. Torn tyres, leaking radiators
and so on. So we needed to restore it and make it a working Mercedes Benz. So
we had to change the tyres to regular tyres, we had to change the wipers to
make sure they are working. We had to change the seats at least refurbish them,
put new set. It now became a restored Mercedes Benz. Then we now moved to the
next level, which is to transform it. So we said what do you do to transform
the Mercedes Benz? The seats that you have repaired, can you give them a better
look than what was there? Can you make it leather instead of fabric? Can you
make the windows tinted? Can you change the tyres to alloy wheels? That for us
is transformation. We have restored it but now we are transforming.
Restoration means bringing back to the state of affairs that
it was. But to transform it is to change that state of affairs. Believe you me
what we have done today is transforming Oyo State. What do we do next? We must now
reposition Oyo State. How do you reposition Oyo State? What is repositioning? You must look at the car and say this my
Mercedes Benz, fantastic, how does it compare with the best Mercedes Benz in
the world? So repositioning is simply comparative movement. You compare with
others and you take it from your transformed state into what I call a
repositioned state. That is, among the comity of states, how do you rank?
So, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, taking education
which is our focus today, skill acquisition, intellectual development, what we
are doing today is we all trying not only to transform our education sector but
to reposition it. That is why when you travel abroad, what are you going there
to do? To see and compare, to pick and to learn because if it is for Ibadan, if
it is for Oyo State, you have come up with different software but how do they
compare to others? So distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate you
for coming into our world.
What is our world? Our world in Oyo State is to continue and
to encourage intellectual capital, human capital development. What is ruling in
the world today is intellectual capital. It is not how big you are, it is not
how highly populated you are, it is how you can use your brain to do the work
and today, I congratulate you once again.
Before I end my speech, let me mention quickly that for us
in Oyo State, our world is a world where as a foundation, we have peace and
security. The job of every government is to provide peace and security for the
citizenry. Our job is to provide an environment where you can become the best that
you can be. And this is what we are doing. It starts with peace and security as
the foundation. When you finish a foundation, what is on top? German floor. We
have used our own German floor as infrastructure. On that German floor we now
have five pillars of development.
Education is our number one pillar on that German floor. After
education, we have health. Health is wealth. If you are educated, it is likely
you will live a healthier life than somebody who is not. In Nigeria today, our
main problem is attitudinal problem. I believe that after education and heath
as pillars, then we go to agriculture. We believe agriculture is the foundation
of any industrial revolution. What we are having today is technological
revolution but we also need industrial revolution in agriculture and we feel after
agriculture, we need industrialization. And lastly our culture and tourism.
Oyo State is blessed in that much as we pride ourselves as
the intellectual capital of Nigeria; we are also the cultural capital of
Nigeria of Nigeria because Oyo State is the potpourri of Yoruba culture. We
were once the capital of the Yorubas. You might be saying what is culture, what
are we going to get there? One of the richest economies in the world today lives
mainly on culture and agriculture, that is California. Culture in form of tourism
and entertainment and so on. It is one of the richest economies in the whole
world. And I believe Oyo State, if well coordinated, we can get there.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, let me quickly speak on
education. We have succeeded quite well. This Technical University is part of
the success story. Our education policy, we have placed it on three legs;
people, pupil, parent and teachers; that is one leg. The second leg is
infrastructure; buildings and the third leg, materials and facilities. I can
say today that our education policy is a success story and I believe today we
can proudly say that we got the best result in 19 years in WAEC exam. You may
say it is 54.7% but before then we had 11%, before then we had 35% but now 54
is a pass mark. That means it is working.
We spent a lot of money on infrastructure, close to N
4billion for secondary schools another N 2 billion for renovation of 100
schools. We are very proud of our School Governing Boards. In fact the whole of
the South West now say they must copy our education policy. It is
participatory, everybody must participate and I am happy it is working well. All
the SGBs are working well. The concept is that everybody must participate.
Teachers alone cannot train the children. Every child should be trained from
home. I will like to use this opportunity to commend all those who are
participating in the SGBs.
When the Special Adviser on Education, Dr. Akin-Alabi was
talking, she spoke on constituted authority, I don’t know why people don’t
understand; the constituted authority controlling the whole world is God. There
is nowhere you don’t have constituted authority. The constituted authority in
this school is the Vice-Chancellor. And for most you sitting here, once you
have a home and you have a wife and children, and if you are bringing money
home for them to eat, you are the constituted authority. But if all you do is
sit down and your wife is the one bringing money home, you are the delegated
authority.
Let me end my speech by saying that all those students that
made their presentations today impressed me. And they impressed me because you
could see in them the commitment, interest, even in their rendition. I was so
impressed and I have no doubt that some of them will go places. I must commend
the panelists because they did not only look at the theoretical aspect of the
presentation. They looked at the practicality of it. It is not enough to just
come up with the idea. Is it workable? And I like to say that if you can come
up with a good package, who are your customers? It is government, sellers and
buyers but more importantly government and the likes of West Africa ENRG
because they can use the programme to know who wants to buy, what exists and so
on. And that is how people start. If you look at the Bill Gates of this world,
it is not that they started by selling to individuals. The Government
encouraged them. We are going to encourage you.
In conclusion, I will like to state clearly here that Oyo
State in the last seven years, we could boldly say that we have restored our
lost glory by being a peaceful state. We have transformed ourselves into a
learning state. We are one of the four learning cities in Nigeria. We have
Kano, Abuja, Enugu and Oyo State and I am sure you have listened to all the
benefits of being a learning city. We are not just a learning city, we are a
safe city. We have started installing CCTV cameras. Soon, we will be one of the
safe cities in Nigeria. We are currently arguably the fourth largest economy in
Nigeria, we are the 18th largest economy in Africa. In our
repositioning efforts, Oyo State, at the rate we are going, we are working to
see what Oyo State will be like in 25 years’ time. We have instituted a master
plan that in the next twenty five years, undoubtedly Oyo State will become the
fifth largest economy in Africa. Currently we are the 18th largest
economy in Africa with about $ 3 billion GDP.
If you hear that people are fighting here and there and
everybody is fighting to be Governor, even people that are not supposed to be
councilors want to be Governor but what is important to us is to ensure that we
get the right people there so that we can have sustainable development.
I am glad that the first technical university in Nigeria,
Tech-U has signed an agreement with Texas Tech where there will be exchange
programmes through which any student that passes through Tech-U can go to Texas
Tech. It is good for exposure. I remember when we brought students in from
every local government without knowing the students, we didn’t give room for
favouritism. We said the best students, first we took three, now five students
from each local government and we are sponsoring them throughout their
university education.
33 local governments are sponsoring 165 students. This
school is not free. There is no free education anywhere in the world. Not even
in America, not even in Freetown. So distinguished ladies and gentlemen, we
have high hopes on all of you here, particularly the students. Oyo State
Government will also support all those students who have excelled today.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen I like to thank you for taking time to come
here, on a Sunday. God bless you.
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