Nigeria must de-emphasise her considerations for paper qualifications in deciding choices of leaders at various levels of governments, vice chancellor, Al- Hikmah university, Ilorin, Prof Noah Yusuf, has said.
He said paper qualifications was not a guarantee for good leadership performance and such should be de-emphasised.
Instead, he recommended evidence of “proven intergrity and past records of leadership performance” as pre-requisites for choosing leaders into various political offices in Nigeria.
Yusuf made the declaration while responding to questions from repoters at a press briefing ahead of the university’s 11th convocation ceremony coming up on Saturday.
He said though the university has produced 28 first class graduates out of the 1,079 that will be graduating on Saturday, the institution he said, was grooming it’s graduands not to depend on elusive “white collar jobs.”
The vice chancellor said the university had ventured into varsities entrepreneurship programmes to provide opportunities for it graduates to be self reliant after graduation.
Yusuf unfolded plans to explore the university vast hectres of land for mechanised farming as a way of improving it’s internally generated revenue and contribute to the nation’s efforts towards food sufficiency.
“Already, the faculty of Agriculture campus is supplying our poultry needs now , just as animal husbandry is receiving attention . In the area of agronomy ,the university farm has been harvesting various crops ,sold at subsidized prices to immediate communities in Igbaja and Ilorin. “Our plan in the future is to turn the vast hectres of land in Igbaja into a highly mecahanisd farming region. This will boost the food security within our axis to a large extent,” he said.
Yusuf said the university had secured accreditation for 22 programmes from the Nigeria Universities Commission (NUC), adding that it will present another 11 new courses for accrediation in January 22, 2022.
