Omole hinges nation's growth on better funding of education

FORMER Vice Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Prof. Wale Omole, has identified education as the major thing the leadership of Nigeria needed to fix, if the nation must attain greatness.
  Speaking at an interactive forum with journalists in Lagos at the weekend, the erudite scholar said the current crop of leadership needed to re-examine the kind of federalism, which allowed the South-Western region of the country, under the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, achieve so much, particularly in education and other sectors of her economy.
  He described as clearly unthinkable the allocation of paltry percentage of the federal and state budgets to the education sector, explaining that every other area of the nation’s life would be naturally taken care of when the people get proper education and become aware of the right ways to do things.
  Omole, who is also chairman of the Osun State Economic Team, said the criticism trailing the new town project, which the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) has initiated and endorsed by the Governor Rauf Aregbesola-led government in Osun State, was misplaced by people who rather than explore the economic prospect of the agenda, were playing politics with something more fundamental.
  According to him, if past efforts of government at creating new towns have failed, there shouldn’t be anything wrong in appealing to the sensibility of the people to create opportunities for more members of the society to be brought together in a given society to fend for themselves and become self-reliant.
  “I am not a member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, but I believe that if the church has proven to be capable of creating new towns from religious angle, just like it has effectively done on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, thereby boosting the economic capability of the people of that area, they should get encouragement to be able to replicate the ingenuity in any other part of the country”, he said.
  He admonished all Nigerians to shun politicising whatever could bring development, adding that a legacy for which the youth, who are future leaders of this country, would be proud, can only be got when everybody places the general interest above self.