By Baba Adam Isa
A development strategist, Dr Umar Buba Bindir, has urged Nigerian universities to stop being “degree factories” and become engines of wealth creation that deliver measurable results in poverty eradication, job creation, and global competitiveness.
The development strategist declared this recently while speaking at Nasarawa State University, Keffi, (NSUK).
Delivering the Silver Jubilee Anniversary Lecture titled “From Knowledge to Wealth Creation: Pathway to Revitalising the Impacts of Tertiary Education System in Nigeria,” Bindir said the true test of tertiary education is not the number of graduates it turns out, but the evidence of sustainable development seen in campuses, towns and cities, states, and across Nigeria.
He argued that if knowledge and know-how flowing through institutions like NSUK does not translate into wealth creation, then the tertiary system has failed its core mandate.
To make his case, Bindir presented what he called a “Literally If” framework linking knowledge directly to national development. He then laid out three Core Key Performance Indicators that Nigerians should celebrate if universities are working. The first is the total eradication of absolute poverty, which he defined as the absence of food security, basic education, basic healthcare, potable water, decent shelter, and sanitation.
He challenged universities to measure their success by how many communities around them still lack these basics.
The second KPI, he said, is universal access and inclusivity that moves citizens beyond minimum needs to opportunities for a sustained happy, safe, and fulfilling life. For Bindir, this means tertiary education must produce skills, competence, and productivity that attract investment and create jobs, while also instilling ethics, discipline, commitment, and patriotism. He added that a university system that works must foster environments where citizens can be safe, play, and enjoy life, thereby promoting love, peace, unity, and prosperity.
The third indicator is the emergence of strong, world-class institutions that make Nigeria a respected nation. Bindir insisted that national respect will come only when Nigerian universities build functional institutions capable of producing global enterprises, global products and know-how, and dynamic innovations that compete internationally. He urged universities to stop measuring success by enrollment or graduation figures and instead track patents, startups, and exports generated from campus research.
Bindir warned that celebration without accountability breeds complacency. He said NSUK, at 25, sits in Nigeria’s food belt and energy frontier and should therefore lead research on drought-resistant crops, solar grids, and agro-processing if it hopes to be relevant. “If knowledge does not create wealth, then the tertiary system has failed,” he said. “Universities must stop being degree factories and become solution factories.”