Legal luminary, Aare Afe Babalola, has said Nigeria needs a new constitution to enhance its industrial, economic and all-round development.
The founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), also sought partnership between China and the university’s industrial park and research centre.
The elder statesman who stressed the need for a new constitution said such would ensure free involvement of Nigerians in the industrial development and growth of the country.
Aare Babalola who spoke in Ado-Ekiti, during ABUAD-China partnership forum meeting, with delegates from the China-Nigeria Consortium on Industry and Education, decried the continued refusal by the federal government to issue a free trade zone certificate to the university.
According to him, the over 132-unit ABUAD Industrial Park in Ado-Ekiti was enough to turn the story of Nigeria around, if well annexed and utilised.
He noted that China, some 25 years ago, was a very poor country but the people were wise to create an area we now call a free trade zone which makes them economically stable.
The senior lawyer said, “When Nigeria became independent in 1960, China was nowhere but China today is the number two next to the USA in almost everything.
“Americans, Germans and others went there to start industries and the Chinese studied them and that was how Shanghai became a very developed industrial area; free, so that you don’t pay for anything.
“That was the idea we were craving for. I have applied for a free trade zone for the past two years, but they didn’t give me here. It is to enable people to come and trade here and set up industries here.
“I have an American company which wants to start building cars in our industrial park but up till now, we were denied the free trade zone certificate.
“If we had a regional government as we had before, we would have developed more than what we are today. That is one more reason why Nigeria needs a new constitution, otherwise we may not develop.”
He described partnering with China as an achievement saying they can partner in many areas, “Because of our zeal and intention to make it better than others, we want universities and organisations in China to partner with us.”
In her address, the secretary-general of the China-Nigeria Consortium on Industry and Education, Ms Wendy Wang, who spoke through an interpreter, commended Afe Babalola for his visionary achievements in education, engineering and health.
She described ABUAD as the best institution in Nigeria, highlighting its integration of cutting-edge technologies in its curriculum.
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