By Sunday Abah, Abuja
Nasarawa State University, Keffi has been charged to endeavour to champion food production and supply, as well as promote initiatives aimed at boosting access to renewable energy in Africa, as the Ivory Tower held its Silver Jubilee with 8th Combined Convocation ceremony.
The great Kenyan lawyer, academic, and Pan-Africanist Professor Patrick Loch Otieno (Patrick Loch Otieno) Lumumba handed down the charge at the weekend while delivering the convocation lecture at the university’s Multi-purpose Hall on the topic: “Education Without Borders: Internationalisation of African Universities’ Education System.”
Professor Lumumba said he looked forward to the day that Africa can produce enough food to feed its citizens through African experts trained at its universities, beginning with Nasarawa State University, Keffi.
“I have been tasked to reimagine what Africa could do and what role I think the universities can play in that reimagination, particularly today.
“I look forward, because when I am invited for lunch, and I am called upon to consume rice, invariably, it will be rice that is produced here in Nasarawa, and that when I go to Ghana, it will be rice produced by Nasarawa State University Keffi
“And it will not be the case whereby when I go to Kenya, rice is being imported from Pakistan or other parts of the world, and I believe that that idea will come from the Faculty of Agriculture here at the State University in Nasarawa. I look forward to those days.
“I look forward to the day when we will produce university students in agriculture who are able to interact not with the cows that the good engineer called athletic cows, but cows that can produce milk. I was told by a friend of mine at one time that today, in a number of African universities, sometimes we have graduates of agriculture – of course, this is not true, but he was making his point.
He said, ‘We now have university graduates in agriculture who cannot tell the difference between a goat and a sheep, and who cannot tell the difference between a donkey and a horse and cannot tell the difference between a camel and a horse.’
“Of course, he was only making a point. But one point he was making is that we want students of agriculture who are practical and who are going to ensure that Africa feeds itself. I look forward to the university being present in the villages.
“You know, many times when I travel across the continent of Africa, and I do, and I look at some of the things that are happening on the mother continent, I remind myself that our universities must be the game changers. And how will universities change the game?
“Universities will only change the game when our professors are enabled. Africans in 2015 came up with a document, the Africa Agenda 2063. These are the promises that we make to ourselves. We tell ourselves that we shall be an industrialised Africa. We tell ourselves that Africa will be manufacturing. We tell ourselves that Africa will be adding value to our resources.
“The question is, will the University of Nasarawa be involved in producing the men and women that will help us in industrialisation? I am telling African universities, as I stand here in Nasarawa, that this is what we must do. We are also asking ourselves that in order to be participants in the spirit of Africa Agenda 2063, we must embrace technology.
“And in order to embrace technology, it is incumbent upon us to have power, to generate power. I am aware, as the governor said, in Nigeria, you generate no more than 5,000 megawatts. In Kenya, we generate no more than 5,000 megawatts. In many African countries, we generate less than 1,000 megawatts. The little island of South Korea generates more electricity than all Sub-Saharan Africa combined.
“I am now saying that Nasarawa University must be the place where we are talking about new and renewable energy; I am saying that that is the role that the university must play.
“And you know, when I think about that, and I also think about feeding ourselves, historians and others tell us: if you cannot feed yourself, you will always be humiliated by other civilizations. Africa is still a net importer of food.
“I am suggesting that the universities must be involved in the process of creating the know-how that would ensure that we can produce enough beef, that we can produce enough rice, that we can produce enough and feed ourselves, because it is only when we feed ourselves that we shall have the confidence to confront the world.
“And I have no doubt in my mind that when Africa Agenda 2063 is wedded with the Africa Continental Free Trade Area, and when all the universities are involved in knowledge incubation and production, our university students and graduates will no longer be mere holders of certificates, but they will be doers.
“They will go out into the world and do what Africa requires. So my charge to you today, here at Nasarawa, is that you students who are present here, I want us to take a solemn vow. And the vow is that when we leave here, if you are a student of law, go out there and ask yourself what kind of law you are learning, and how effective it will be in creating peace and justice on the continent of Africa.
“When you are here, and you are a student of engineering, I am asking you to go out there and remember that your duty as a student of engineering is not to recite theories, but to be in a position to invent and to reinvent, and so on.”
Lumumba expressed the hope that, looking at the eventful history of Nasarawa State University at 25 years only, he was convinced that the needful that would change the game in Nigeria can be done by it, adding, however, “But that which can be done is not done until it is done. So we must do it.”