One-time presidential aspirant under the National Rescue Movement Party, Prof. Benedicta Egbo has said that lack of patriotism is one of the main causes of political challenges bedeviling the nation.
The Canadian-based Professor of Education emeritus also admitted that endemic corruption was part of Nigeria’s albatross and argued that if the citizens in Nigeria are patriotic enough, they will unite and build bridges for peace and national development for the common good of everyone.
Professor Egbo, who spoke in Abuja during an annual lecture in her honour and the public presentation of her book, “Education and Sustainable Development in 21st Century Nigeria”, also identified civic infidelity as one of major problems of Nigeria and not corruption.
According to her, “If you are patriotic and you love your nation, you will not want to engage in corruption. Patriots understand that the country’s commonwealth is not a personal asset to be converted to private use. Similarly, patriots do not exploit diversity based on primordial sentiments and loyalties.”
Also speaking at the event, one of the prominent activists in the country, Barr. Dotun Hassan called for more investments in education in order to address the current insecurity across the country.
Hassan also called for educational restructuring in order to drive holistic development in the country.
He emphasized the need for a more comprehensive approach to education, stating that the current system is too focused on academic performance and neglects other important aspects of development such as emotional intelligence, morals, critical thinking, among others.
He said, “We believe that Mr President has come up with a renewed hope agenda in which education is part of his vision and the bus stop on his table.
“We want to use this opportunity to let him know that he needs to come up with a national plan on education to increasing the budgetary allocation to education to 35 per cent to ensuring the curriculum in the educational system is reviewed and ensuring proper administration and administrative ordering whereby no more ASUU strike, no more NASU strike and this will address the insecurity. We believe that the best way we can achieve this is through restructuring.
“What the president must do is to come up with a presidential fiat by ensuring he writes the national assembly on the need to reconstruct the constitution based on existing proposals in view of the Confab report of previous administration, in view of the SDG goals and proper document and even the 1963 constitution needs to be merged together. We can improve a lot if we have the right constitution.”
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