24th May, 2018
Alhaji Akeem Lawal, the son of the late governor of Kwara, Rear-Admiral Mohammed Lawal, has offered scholarship to 100 National Diploma students of the Pan African College of Education in Offa, Kwara.
Lawal, who announced the gesture at the institution’s matriculation of 105 students, said he gave the students scholarship because of his passion for human capital development.
The chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara said he was not expecting commendation from the people over the gesture.
He said the main aim of the scholarship was to assure Nigerian youths that an indigent background should not be a barrier to accessing education.
Lawal frowned at the lackadaisical attitude of Nigerian leaders toward the development of the nation’s younger generation, particularly in the area of education.
In his address, the Provost of the college, Mr Michael Opadere, lamented the level of social vices among youths in the country.
The Provost also said that agencies saddled with the responsibility of moulding character had failed.
Opadere noted that Nigeria, widely known to be a religious nation with hundreds of thousands of clerics, did not pay the needed attention to the development of its youths.
“It is worrisome today that youths in Nigeria have lost their virtues of hard work, honesty and sense of morality,” Opadere said.
According to him, Nigerian youths fall into the unfortunate habit of indulging in social vices in an attempt to find alternative sources of livelihood.
“What a pity, the question now is; should our traditional complacency of sitting on the fence continue?
“Must we watch well-meaning Nigerians with wonderful intellectual abilities fall into nothingness and become huge wastes?
“Must we allow these alternative survival strategies evolved by our youths continue to win converts for the exhibition of cruelty,’’
The provost said the college has launched a tuition-free scholarship programme for 1,500 candidates as part of its corporate responsibility for the 2018/2019 academic session.