THE TYPE OF EDUCATION WE NEED IN AFRICA
-Speech by Dr David Olaniyi Oyedepo, Chancellor, Landmark University at 10th convocation ceremony.
LANDMARK IS AN AFROCENTRIC UNIVERSITY WITH A BURNING PASSION FOR A NEW AFRICA
ONE OF OUR CORE MISSIONS FOR EXISTENCE IS TO SEE AFRICA RESTORED TO GLORY
AFRICA IS NOT WHERE SHE IS BECAUSE SHE IS BLACK BUT BECAUSE SHE IS BLIND
I BELIEVE FINDING INDIGENOUS SOLUTIONS IS THE ONLY WAY FORWARD FOR ANY COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE
UNTIL WE BECOME INTELLECTUALLY INNOVATIVE AND CREATIVE, OUR SITUATION MAY AS WELL REMAIN WITH US FOR LIFE
LANDMARK UNIVERSITY PRODUCES ONE OF THE MOST EMPLOYABLE GRADUATES IN NIGERIA TODAY
– Bishop David Oyedepo on THE TYPE OF EDUCATION WE NEED IN AFRICA at 10th Convocation Ceremony of Landmark University Omu-Aran, Kwara State 13th October 2023
Thank you very much! I want to especially give glory to God for this 10th Convocation Ceremony of Landmark University. It all looks like yesterday and here we are today to the glory of God. One more time, help me give the Lord a big hand of praise. My joy is in many folds.
One, the mission and the vision have continued to speak. The specialized mode of education we had at the beginning is speaking around the world today. To God be all the glory.
To have graduates of this institution becoming employers of labor while we are still alive, to God be all the glory.
Let me also welcome every one of us to this convocation ceremony particularly our royal fathers…all the Oba’s of our environment that are here, thank you for coming.
Thank you for honoring the Lord with your presence and thank you for hosting this university in this community without any stress. The Lord bless and reward you in Jesus’ name.
We also appreciate all our university friends who have come from far and near, be blessed also in Jesus name.
I have tried to title…standing upon all existing protocols my speech today as “THE TYPE OF EDUCATION WE NEED IN AFRICA”.
It’s going to be a lot of ‘food for thought’ and I want both the graduate in class and all our friends that are here today to please, Let’s put our thinking caps and chart the way forward to this great Continent.
No one ever arrives at the future he cannot see and no one arrives at the future he is not prepared for. Africa is not where she is because she’s black but largely because she’s blind.
The “what will happen will happen” mentality is what has but African to where she is today. We don’t wait to see problems solved we take steps to solve problems.
Someone has said you’re not a failure until you look for who to blame for it. Interestingly, our mission as a University among others is to see the lost glory of Africa restored.
One of our core missions for existence is to see Africa’s glory recovered. I believe finding indigenous solutions is the only way forward for any community of people.
This is because man is absolutely responsible for the outcome of his life.
Let’s have some flashback, our forefathers solved their problems brazenly, without a school system in place.
But here we are today with chains of degrees, proof of how intelligent we are as a people…yet with not much impact on the society. Some 25 years ago, I took a study on the human brain…and to my amazement, the human brain is the same for all races and this applies to both males and females. The brain is said to have over 86 billion neurons, with over 100 trillion connections.
Each neuron is a ‘little learning center’ capable of storing knowledge…but each neuron deserves to be fed with vital information, to be healthy enough to perform at peak and optimal levels thereby provoking creativity. If we fail to feed and exercise the muscles of the brain, through the act of peak learning and solution-driven reasoning, it will sag and become flabby…just like the muscles of a weak body that is not exercised. As commonly said man is said to be operating only 5% of the rated capacity of the brain.
I believe our problem in this part of the world lies in the lack of adequate engagement of this natural endowment, which is largely responsible for where we are today.
Every great nation is a function of the Valuable contributions of individuals and organizations within her domain.
A developed people is what results in a developed Nation. What is responsible for the pitiable of the black man? Simply, lack of adequate utilization of this natural endowment.
The human brain has an intuitive capacity to innovate, invent and create if properly engaged. According to Adadevoh, an erudite academic, “Africa today is an eagle that is yet to soar.
She needs to tell herself she’s an eagle that belongs to the sky. Every imagination that places Africa in a lower category in relation to other people shall be replaced with the new thoughts that see Africa in the center stage in global development.”
Until we become intellectually innovative and creative, our situation may as well remain with us for life. Landmark University is an Afrocentric University with a burning passion for a new Africa. Without a departure, arrival at one’s destination is not in view.
If you’re not willing to lose sight of the shore, you can’t discover new highlands…and that informs our Founding Philosophy in this University which describes this assertion in unmistakable terms which is;
A departure from
– Form to Skill
– Knowledge to Empowerment
– Figures to Future building
– Legalism to Realism
– Points to Facts
– Mathematics to Life-matics
We need to come down to life applicable engagement of this versatile resource that we carry.
This departure philosophy has made our product unique in every way.
This institution today produces one of the most employable graduates in Nigeria today. At Landmark University, we desire not just a diagnosis of the problem but an action plan that turns rhetoric into a positive experience.
We are committed to giving life-applicable education to a new generation of leaders by planting their skills on the elevated platform of our core values.
No matter where skill takes you, only character can sustain you there. The crisis in our country today is a Character crisis, nothing else. Our Custom-built programs which include TMC, EDS, Agriprenuership and TTG are unique to us.
The impact has been awesome over the years, they constitute the Man-child Training Module of Landmark University.
Our mission is to turn men out of Children and I’m glad all the parents that are here, you know something has taken place in the life of your sons and daughters.
So my challenge to Africans in the Knowledge industry is to come awake and begin to chart the way forward by developing learning modules geared towards the birth of a new Africa. We have a unique problem, the white man can’t solve this problem.
People not conscious of their history hardly make history. We are not dummies, we live largely today as a people without history.
They want to write our history for us the way they see it. This is because the history, of the outstanding feats of our forefathers were either not documented or considered to lack merit.
We have been victims of oral history, which is largely void of facts and figures of the gallant feats of our ancestors…but rather full of fictions.
For instance, before the Advent of colonial Masters who taught our forefathers the art of farming? If they were not eating, would they meet anybody when they came?
Who helped them to discover what is edible? Who taught them how to prepare their meals? Who taught them the planting season for every crop?
Who taught them the technicalities involved in childbearing and childcare delivery? Yet they understood what to do at child, birth and they knew how to take care of both the baby and the young mother.
Our forefathers maintained their territorial integrity by constructing their own weapons of war, designed by their own textile mills.
They were not wearing leaves. They had their own former Judicial system and operated the same efficiently.
They exhibited self-actualization through self-determination. They were self-reliant and commanded lots of dignity in their endeavors. Our forefathers were surely ‘Bigwigs’.
As I’ve said earlier, without a sense of history, no one really makes history. We are people with a very rich history we need to come awake to that. It’s time to recover.
Modern-day facts of History also assert that black people built the first civilization. History asserts that black people built the pyramids of Egypt with archaeological discoveries and mummies that date back over 3000 BC.
Black people first discovered architecture, geometry and astrology.
Greek historians, artists and mathematicians went to Egypt for their education between 2900-2400 BC. (500years).
The Greeks passed civilization to the Romans. The Romans could not retain it and later Europe was plunged into the dark ages. Another set of Africans known as the ‘Moors’ moved to Spain in 711AD and re-civilized Europe again.
Man is created to solve his own problems wherever he is planted. As we know, trees do not travel and yet they have survived for centuries. In the same vein, animals do not need to travel, they don’t have visas.
Only man travels the world looking for solutions instead of confronting them where he is and bringing solutions as our forefathers did.
I call it ‘food for thoughts’ and I’m sure we’re thinking along. So to the graduating students, the world is not looking for storytellers or entertainers, the world is looking for problem solvers.
Identify the problem you are out to solve. Money is not everything, money can mess up any destiny. I was on 300 Naira per month as the President and founder of our mission.
That’s what we could afford, we have never borrowed in this world. Know where you belong, stay on there and stick to it. The future is bright for problem solvers not for consumers. Ecclesiastes 5:9.
Everybody has a role to play at his level per time. Let me at this juncture congratulate all parents and guardians of our graduates of today…because you chose to give your wards access to the best form of education available in this country today…and may you live to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Young people, we are releasing you as problem solvers. Find a problem to solve. Beginning from your homes, beginning from your workplace, everybody has a role to play in creating a new Africa.
I have said it before, a time will come when there will be no country to run into because every country would have enough problems to cope with.
They would be sending people back to where they came from because everyone would be victims of the economic crumbling in the entire world. May you be part of those solution providers.
Now, Giants don’t give birth to dwarfs. You can’t be coming from the source you are coming from and end up a mediocre if you will take responsibility.
My prayer as I close, is that you receive Grace to take responsibility over your life and not be crying on your mother’s lap but a blessing instead.
My prayer again is that none of you would have your life cut short. None of your parents would bury any of you, you would fulfill destiny in grand style.
Every agent of the devil seeking hurt would be hurt in your place. Everyone who hates to see you soar would go down for you…and my prayer is that you’ll take responsibility for integrity, for character and you’ll keep building capacity and even the sky will not be your limit.
Once again thank you for listening and God bless you.
#BishopDavidOyedepo
#10thConvocationCeremony
#13thOctober2023
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