A former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bisi Akande, has declared that only a rigorous, widespread, and deep educational foundation can solve Nigeria’s pervasive insecurity.
He issued the stern warning on Friday at his country home in Ila, Osun State, during an event marking his 87th birthday.
The elder statesman expressed grave concern over what he described as the deliberate lowering of educational standards in the country. He argued that graduates produced from a system with compromised benchmarks would be ill-equipped to compete globally, leaving the nation at a severe disadvantage.
“Good education will make you competitive in the global world,” Akande stated. “If you offer 25% as a pass mark in the university, you can’t compete with China, which will expect you to score 80%. That is where they practise absolute meritocracy.”
Drawing a stark contrast between enlightenment and barbarism, Akande linked a lack of education directly to violent crime. “When you are not educated, you are an animal,” he told journalists. “When you are not educated, you don’t mind killing people; you can be a murderer, you won’t be ashamed of it.”
Also citing global power dynamics, Akande referenced recent international events to crystallize his point. He suggested that the capacity for nations like the United States to project power stems from the “sound education its citizens had been exposed to over the years.”
He, therefore, strongly cautioned Nigerian authorities against the dangerous shortcut of circumventing quality university education by lowering pass marks, insisting that the nation’s future security and prestige depend on intellectual rigor.
