Aregbesola Charges Varsities To Engage More In Research Devt To Solve Economic Problems

The Governor of Osun, Ogbeni  Rauf Aregbesola,  has charged Nigerian Universities to engage much more in research development to be able to proffer lasting solutions to the myriads of economic problems bedeviling the nation.

He also called on them to apply themselves to affect the society, saying it was incumbent upon the universities to have interest in every aspects of the society.

The governor made the call on Wednesday in Osogbo,  the state capital,  when members of the council of the OAU paid him a courtesy visit in his office.

Aregbesola  who called on the management of the Obafemi Awolowo University,  Ile-Ife,  Osun State, and other Nigerian universities  to come up with solutions on matters and challenges facing the country,  lamented the alarming rate of poverty in the land.

“If hunger is eliminated from our land, then human beings will be normal.  Hunger is the true definition of poverty and poverty is the great grandfather of all crises,”  he said.

He lamented Nigerian universities’ failure to use research development to address the nation’s socio-economic problems.

“All the challenges we are facing in this country are due to scholarship problems. Let universities engage in research and development as well as other scholarly programmes to proffer solutions to Nigeria’s problems,”  he stressed.

“You have society totally unaffected. Universities must apply themselves with the society.  There are so many glaring crisis in our society which the universities must address ”

He urged them to embark on research capable of developing agriculture for food production and security.

Aregbesola  called on the Nigerian universities to focus on the society and add value to it so that the society, too, could embrace them.

He therefore promised to partner with OAU in every capacity to enable them live up to the expectations.

The OAU Council Chairman, Yemi Ogunbiyi, said the university would partner with the state government to continue the good legacies that Aregbesola had set, even after his tenure.

He also assured that the university would continue to perform its social responsibilities as part of its contributions to the socio-economic development of the state.

He enthused that Aregbesola had been able to live his footprints in the sand of time through what he described as his gigantic infrastructure development in the state.

He said that it was the development that inspired the members of the university council to pay him a courtesy visit to commend him and encourage him to do more.