We encourage students to build careers in agriculture

What is your take on the fallen standard of education in Nigeria? That notion is erroneously conceived. In the actual sense, standards do not drop; instead we should examine the conditions, the capacity building and provision of infrastructure among others. Our universities were impressive and worth seeing in those days. But today, we are battling […]

What is your take on the fallen standard of education in Nigeria?

That notion is erroneously conceived. In the actual sense, standards do not drop; instead we should examine the conditions, the capacity building and provision of infrastructure among others. Our universities were impressive and worth seeing in those days. But today, we are battling with the issue of admission into these universities. We need to examine the number of candidates who sit for Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UMTE). Even while admitting the students we must consider the issue of the population and the ratio of the available facilities among others. Today in many of those universities, you see students going to make paper copies of documents in photocopying machines without dry ink. No good toilets and no dining facilities in many others. Students are the ones sorting out their own accommodations and losing precious time in the process. University environment must be the conscience of the nation. In the area of quality and standard, only very few universities could today compete with their colleagues in Europe or United States. 

There must be a developmental plan from cradle to adulthood. Learning does not end at adulthood it continues. Again, in the area of policy formation, I want to fault the idea of each successive ministers of education coming on board with different policies causing disconnect in the system. The input of the technocrats should be added in this respect. We need proper statistics on what our needs are at every time especially knowing the time and the type of training to embark on. We need to support bursary and bring back the golden era of scholarship awards to students. Very soon 2020 will come to an end but where is Nigeria? We need to holistically examine all these before we should be talking of the standards of education in Nigeria. 

Indiscipline among undergraduates is cause for concern, how do we solve this challenge?

At Landmark University here, we frown at anything that will lead to harassment of any sort. Indiscipline does not exist here as well as our sister university, Covenant University Sango Otta, Ogun State. So, through well defined policy and good moral lessons, moral decadence will be a thing of the past.

Unemployment remains a perennial cause of poverty among people. What is the way to solve unemployment?

The issue of unemployment can’t be arrested without creating massive job opportunities. When we talk of economic theory, land is no doubt a major factor of production. Every arable land should therefore be turned into farm land. Many rural dwellers are becoming aged and sickly. How much support do they get? There are poor health facilities. As we make the agricultural sector very attractive, it begins to make sense, but it will not be fully attractive without the use of new technology which will surely make it grow. Even in the areas of diary and livestock farming, we need chemical applications to make them grow. But modern technology should equally come with the issue of bio-sciences. We must also ask for the place of research and development, especially soil test and not this trial and error thing. We need to forecast weather to know when to plant and when not to plant. Farmers must know this. These and many other things are what we do here and the nation can borrow from it. We had groundnut pyramids, cocoa, rubber and palm oil. Malaysia collected palm trees from us but today the country exports the refined and processed products into Nigeria. Last year, after much teaching and research works between September and December, we today have rice on our table. If we use every arable land to plant rice in Nigeria, importation of the staple food will stop and our nation will be better for it.

Can you share any personal experience as vice chancellor of a university promoting agrarian revolution? 

I have the best of garden at home; in fact we have harvested fresh cucumber, eggplant, tomatoes and vegetable there. Do you know that I have not bought okra for nine months now! I am eating well and saving money. That was the way the aged population ate. I am totally into an organic farming but practising it in a natural way. You don’t have to be a big farmer to be a part of this revolution. You can start from the planting of corn. We have students who want to go into agriculture even when they are not studying it as a course. We have modules for this already. The mindset is to have little garden at home. Whatever your discipline here you look at the issue of policy of agriculture. Agricultural revolution has a way of restoring the dignity of the black race. Good meal has a way of changing our health habit. Charity must begin at home. We need to go commercial and not teaching alone. That is our aim and we are gradually getting there. Very soon, we shall become the food basket of the nation. The geographical location here makes us to thrive as well. 

The primary vision of Landmark University in addition to its emphasis on it becoming a leading world class university is its quest to drive an agrarian revolution by digging the treasure in mother land Africa towards bringing out the dignity in black race. It is a solid foundation already built on excellence. It is clear from the idea of the Chancellor, Bishop David Oyedepo that the university would have a clear focus and that excellence would be her pursuits as far as research focus, community development and enterprise that take cognisance of agricultural issues are concerned. These were excellently put in place and brought into manifestation on March 21, 2011, which was the ‘Founder’s Day.’ The vision has continued to crystalline more and more in order to give credence to what we are doing. Our agricultural produce is bringing on board the much needed value chain. Our graduates are churned out with the mindset that agriculture must be practised. Among the existing colleges at the university, it is the College of Agricultural Science that encapsulates the vision. College of Science supplies the much needed research into agricultural projects, soil crops and agricultural economy and very soon, veterinary science, food science and veterinary medicine will spring forth.  

We are working towards a one stop shop idea in such areas as deliverable, processing, packaging and exportation. The Ilorin International Airport will be helpful on these. We recently paid a courtesy visit on Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State to further drive home our vision on agrarian revolution not only for Nigeria but the entire African continent and the world at large. The current government at the federal level no doubt has agrarian revolution as its focus and agenda. However, what Landmark University has brought to fore is to make the efforts international. United Nations Organisation (UNO) sees vast arable land in Nigeria but we hardly cultivate it. Landmark wants to make improvement of human conditions. 

We can’t continue to look at the faces of our children being malnourished. Besides, we should stop farming that is dependent on the foreign donors. We must begin to embrace that which will deliver sufficient interests and make our youths to be fully involved and engaged