There was a mild drama yesterday in Lagos when a sudden power outage, which lasted for about three minutes disrupted the convocation lecture being delivered by Nigeria’s minister of power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo.
Nebo who was the guest speaker at the 8th Convocation Ceremony of Covenant University, Otta was apparently stupefied for the period the power outage lasted. He however managed to calm the yelling crowd when the power was restored.
“Pardon me for that outage. It’s an indictment on me, the minister of Power. Mr. President has invested so much in the power sector. I can assure that the train is moving and it is moving steadily. By the grace of God, Nigeria will have stable power supply,” Nebo said.
In his speech, the Minister lamented the poor state of university education in Nigeria just as he decried the growing rate of unemployment which he said has now forced dozens of young Nigerians to run after few vacant positions.
“I hate to say this, but a university education has now become just like a visa. Visas don’t guarantee you success at your destination.
With your education, you still have to decide which economy you want to key into.
“Recently one of our parastatals announced vacancies for some positions. Unknown to the applicants, there were vacancies for 78 positions but it turned out that over 40, 000 applied for it. Also, when NAFDAC announced vacancies for 90 positions recently, over 200, 000 Nigerians applied for them,” the minister said.
Nebo, a former Vice Chancellor, University of Nigeria Nsukka, however added that government through its transformation agenda is doing everything possible to reverse the trend. He also portrayed Nigerian economy as one that has witnessed tremendous progress in recent time, just as he encouraged the graduates to explore entrepreneurship in a way that will combat unemployment in the country.
weekly trust
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