Abubakar expressed fears about the fate of the Nigerian nation and stressed that the country appeared to have lost direction.

The Sultan, who is also the President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, expressed regrets that in spite of the nation’s unrivalled wealth and unprecedented resources, developments in the polity had so far belied the available national wealth.

He spoke shortly after his investiture as the sixth Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University by President Goodluck Jonathan, who was represented on the occasion by the Minister of Education, Prof. Rukkayat Ahmed Rufa’i.

According to the Sultan, the various negative tendencies such as corruption, poverty, unemployment and other socio-economic problems have dangerously placed the country on the precipice as typified by the rising wave of violence in parts of the country.

He said, “Corruption has emasculated our progress. Poverty and unemployment have pushed citizens to the brink, fueling and confounding social conflicts; inter-communal crisis has exerted heavy toll on both human lives and property.

“Persistent insecurity has generated panic and anxiety; our social and physical infrastructure are far from meeting the needs of the nation; and the country appears to be adrift and at the core of all these, is ignorance and moral decay.”

The Sultan added that the reforms of the basic and senior secondary education sectors had become imperative for the improvement of the tertiary education level of the country.

He said, “Our state governments, especially here in the north, must begin to realise the enormity of the challenges facing the education sector and to take urgent and necessary steps to address these challenges. For us in the university, this means a number of things: firstly, we cannot build a first-rate university without building a reasonable consensus on how to move the university forward.

“Our vision for this great institution must be a collective one where all major stakeholders take responsibility for their actions and take pride in discharging their varied roles.”

Posted by admin on Nov 23 2011. Filed under Headlines, Sultan of Sokoto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry