By Ikemefuna Ikem
Governor of Enugu State, Dr Peter Mbah, has said that no nation in the world developed when citizens failed to accept responsibility for the future they desire.
Mbah said in Nsukka on Thursday while delivering the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) 55th Convocation Lecture, titled "Restoring the Dignity of Man: Enugu's Quantum Leap in Human Development and Inclusive Prosperity Through Experiential Learning."
He urged citizens to refuse the poverty of imagination by rejecting the quiet invitation to settle, wait or believe that excellence belongs somewhere else.
"No country will develop when ordinary citizens fail to accept responsibility for the future they desire.
"So let us reject the quiet invitation to settle, wait, or believe that excellence belongs somewhere else.
"Let us measure leadership by the capabilities it develops in others, education by the lives learners become able to shape and development by the dignity and opportunity it extends to every citizen," he said.
The governor said that 65 years ago, the late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe established the University of Nigeria and gave it the purpose of restoring the dignity of man.
"That purpose remains unfinished, but it is not beyond our reach.
"Every great university has a philosophy that transcends its physical structures; UNN gave itself an even more profound mission, which is as relevant today as it was at its founding," he said.
Speaking further, Mbah urged everybody to embrace experiential learning not as a foreign educational idea, but as a modern expression of our knowledge tradition and a twenty-first-century development
"Through experiential learning, we seek to democratise the conditions of possibility.
"Knowledge, technology, healthcare, infrastructure, mentorship, capital, connectivity, and opportunity should not be determined by birthplace, income, gender, status, or circumstance.
"Inclusive prosperity begins when the capacity to create value is widely developed, and the opportunity to benefit from that value is broadly shared," he said
Mbah expressed appreciation to the Governing Council, Senate, VC and Management of UNN for finding him worthy to deliver the university's 55th convocation lecture.
"I am deeply honoured to deliver the 55th Convocation Lecture of this great university, a university that was born not merely to award degrees, but to redefine the purpose of higher education in Africa," he said.
In his remark, Prof Simon Ortuanya, Vice-Chancellor, UNN, said that the University of Nigeria was never intended to be another dot on the cartographer's map.
"It was conceived not merely as an institution of higher learning, but as a moral enterprise where the life of the mind would illuminate the destiny of a people, where scholarship would become the conscience of society, and where education would find its highest fulfilment in restoring the dignity of the human person.
"More than six decades later, that founding vision continues to breathe through our classrooms, animate our scholarship and echo across these hills in five immortal words that remain both our compass and our covenant, To Restore the Dignity of Man," he said.
The VC expressed appreciation to Governor Mbah for accepting to be the university's 55th convocation lecturer
Earlier in his remarks, Prof Chinedu Nebo, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Niger, Anambra State, and former VC of UNN, expressed appreciation to the university authority for inviting him to chair the 55th convocation lecture, describing it as a homecoming.
He said that the choice of Governor Mbah as the convocation lecturer was laudable given his wealth of experience in private and public administration.
Members of the South East Movement for President Tinubu 2027, led by Prof Damian Opata, were among those present at the occasion.
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