Immediate past President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, has recently, urged Nigeria and Ghana to leverage on their human and material resources to propel the sub-region to greater economic prosperity and dignity.
Mahama made the appeal at the 16th convocation for the award of higher degrees and conferment of honorary degrees ceremony at the Igbinedion University, Okada, in Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo,Nigeria.
According to the former Ghanaian president, “Ghana and Nigeria being the two biggest economy in the West African sub-region, place a certain responsibilities on us to become the engine room that propel our sub-region to greater prosperity and dignity for our people”
Mahama, while proffering solutions out of the economic recession and climate change, said our various institutions of learning must be able to produce graduates that are creative and also able to think out of the box in order to make the society better for all.
“Institutions of higher learning have a significant role to play in the transformation of our countries.
“First, by producing the required human resources with the requisite skills to transform our societies for the benefit of our people.
“Our societies need innovative and creative graduands with questioning minds, independent of thoughts and creative thinking to be able to think outside the box and proffer solutions that can help in the transformation of our countries.
“We need our universities to also research on the major issues confronting today’s world, such as climate change, the like of populism in our politics, migration, financial recession, depressed commodity price etc”, he said.
On his part, the Chancellor, Iginedion University, Chief Lucky Igbinedion, called on the Federal Government to resolve all impasses with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to ensure smooth running of the academic sessions in the nation’s institutions of learning, adding that any country that toys with the education of its citizens has no future.
Nigeria, Ghana engine rooms for economic growth of sub-region, says Mahama, ex-Ghanian president
