*lauds OAU at 60
By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has said Nigeria must be smarter in policing the country in the face of rising insecurity.
Professor Osinbajo who stated this in Ile Ife over the weekend while speaking at the 60th anniversary of Obafemi Awolowo University advocated usage of smart drones and surveillance equipment.
According to the Vice President, with the situation on ground, the country need big and innovative ideas to solve the challenges facing it and that the time has come for Nigerians particularly the youth to confront the problems of climate change, and a world moving away from fossil fuels, and usher in the age of renewable energy and green solutions.
” The insecurity problems we are experiencing, the rise of terrorism in several parts of this large country and access lethal weapons by non-state actors tell us that we must be smarter in policing the country, using smart drones and surveillance equipment”, he said.
Professor Osinbajo added, ” the politicization of importation of ammunition tells us that we must manufacture our own arms. Already, Proforce, a Nigerian led by Ade Ogundeyin, is manufacturing APCs and MRAPS in their factory in Ode Remo and exporting to several African countries. So are Imperium, and the government-owned DICON is producing different types of munitions”.
” The future is smart weapons benefiting from A.I and Machine Learning. Yes, the challenges are huge, but you are well equipped to resolve them, and the evidence is here already.
Speaking further, the Vice President stressed, ” to the graduands today, you have some of the highest and broadest shoulders to stand on, but it is this generation that must deal with the biggest issues that confront the world, and our nation”, adding, ” it is big and innovative ideas that will solve those problems. You will have to confront the problems of climate change, and a world moving away from fossil fuels, and you will usher in the age of renewable energy and green solutions.”
” You will deal with the issues of feeding, educating, providing healthcare and jobs for the fourth largest population in the world in a few years to come. We will need smarter agric solutions to feed these huge numbers. Technology is already helping to crowd-fund agric and develop more prolific seedlings. Education needs hundreds of new solutions, we will not learn and teach in the old ways in another few years, and we have to design ways of teaching millions, even outside of classrooms. There are many young men and women already doing great things using technology to reach children in far-flung areas with education.
Professor Osinbajo stressed “you will confront the need to vastly improve our public and clinical healthcare. We must build on the work of the Genomics Centre at Ede, and the local vaccine production efforts going on already and make drugs locally for hundreds of millions of Nigerians.
On the University, Professor Osinbajo said Obafemi Awolowo University ” is and continues to be very much a bastion of progressivism and innovation”.
” This progressivism is evident in the outlook of staff and students alike, including alumni who are governors like my learned brother. The great Ife Socialist School of Thought, the Ife Collective, with seminal thinkers like Segun Osoba, Sesan Dipeolu, Toye Olorode, Oladipo Fashina, Segun Adewoye, G.G Darah and others, were here, mutually reinforced by their counterparts at the Ahmadu Bello University.
” It was here at Ife, that Awo, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, for many years as Chancellor of this University, gave some of the most memorable and consequential lectures on the political economy of Nigeria, and addressed some of its most crucial problems, including the imperatives of democracy, national economic development, the ideology of governance, and the famous national census figures.
Congratulating the graduands, Vice President Osinbajo congratulates the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi and the founder of Elizade University Chief Michael Ade Ojo on the Honourary Doctorate degree awards bestored on them by the university.
