Dike Onwuamaeze
The
President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Dr. Akinwumi Adesina,
has urged
Nigerian undergraduates to invest their talents on
entrepreneurship development in order to secure a gainful economic
future for themselves.
Adesina,
made the call when he delivered the convocation lecture at the Bowen
University, at the weekend. He told the young graduates to become job
creators and not job hunters, saying only three million out of 13
million graduates that enter the job market annually are employed.
He said:
“In my days at the university, you got a job immediately after you
graduated. Your future was set. No longer. The graduate today is
graduating into a world of uncertainty. Africa will have the largest
number of youths joining the labour market by 2030 than the entire world
taken together. How many students here have taken courses on entrepreneurship? How many even know about venture capital or angel investors? ”
He also
urged Nigerian universities to shift away from routine teaching into
allowing students to experiment, try things, put ideas to work, and
innovate by evolving structured institutional arrangements for
supporting innovations that would develop and commercialise innovations
developed by universities.
“The
lesson is clear: universities must understand the needs of the private
sector and look for how to drive technologies, innovation and
entrepreneurship to meet those opportunities. That’s the kind of win-win
partnerships that the private sector is looking for from universities.
“Developing
patents is not enough. Patents must lead to business and that can only
happen through supportive environments for them to thrive. Setting up
university foundries is a good way to achieving this,” Adesina said,
adding that they must press on to higher ground.
“That
higher ground is not to depend on others to employ you. The higher
ground is for you to be job creators. The key to that is
entrepreneurship,” he said.
“To be a
successful entrepreneur you need some attributes that you were not
taught in school. The key one is perseverance. Perseverance is defined
as “persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in
achieving success,” he added.
Adesina, also said young female
students deserved special entrepreneurship programs to unleash their
potential. “No bird can fly with one wing. When women’s potential is
fully unlocked, Nigeria will fly with two wings,” he said
He
stated that the AfDB was supporting entrepreneurship programs in African
universities, citing the Rwanda Institute of Science and Technology.
“With
$40 million support from the Bank, the school is world class. And 100
per cent of their students get jobs even before they graduate, with many
setting up their own ventures.
“The
university is linked to the Kigali Innovation City, a modern tech
enabling hub linked to universities to help ideas grow, to turn ideas
into innovations, and turn innovations into thriving businesses,” he
added.
The AfDB boss identified agriculture as one area that was ripe for entrepreneurship.
“One of
the young people in Nigeria I am very proud of is Dr. Tope Aroge. I met
him when I was Minister of Agriculture and provided him a grant of N5
million. He is a medical doctor, now farmer. You may say wow! Yes, go
ahead.
“You are
wondering why did he change from being a medical doctor to farming?
That’s because you do not know that the size of food and agribusiness in
Africa by 2030 will be worth $1 trillion. Yes, you heard me right: $1
trillion.
“Today,
Tope has a 300 ha farm, and he has set up a high quality cassava flour/
industrial starch processing factory which has a 6,000 tonnes capacity.
He is an agricultural entrepreneur. Some
of you should be like him. Here is why: The future millionaires and
billionaires of Africa will not come from oil and gas, but from
agriculture sector. So, universities should move beyond agricultural
science, to agriculture as a business,” he said.
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