Former World Bank Vice-President for Africa, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, has said Nigeria can fully develop its potential if its youths imbibe core moral and social values.
Ezekwesili stated this on Wednesday at the University of Calabar, Cross River State while delivering a keynote address on ‘Nigerian Tertiary Institutions of Learning- Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: implications for National Transformation.’
According to her, tertiary institutions in the country are important vehicles of rural transformation hence the need for youths to act as agents of change.
She frowned on the way youths have embraced social vices, saying the action had hindered national transformation that could promote development.
Ezekwesili, who also decried the effect of corruption on national transformation, said curbing it would only be possible through youths.
She said, “Today’s youths have more challenges than those who came before them because the population has grown and opportunities are narrowed. For any youth to surpass those before him, he will have to work hard enough to earn it.”
Also, the Minister of Tourism and Culture, Chief Edem Duke, urged youths to imbibe values that promote discipline, integrity and dignity.
He challenged them to direct their energies toward achieving goals that would transform the country by buying into the transformation agenda of the Federal Government.
He said, “The President believes that today’s youths are building blocks for Nigeria’s future.”
Earlier, the Director-General of the National Orientation Agency, Mr. Mike Omeri, said his agency was carrying out campaigns in universities to push for character and attitudinal change.
He said, “Regrettably, our tertiary institutions have reached a crisis point where all forms of social vices have found expression.”